Dt: 12 March 2026
Long Post alert
Its year 2026 .I am back to blogging because something spectacular happened after a long time.India won the T20 World Cup 2026 as defending champions at Ahmedabad on 8th March 2026 .Yay !!!!
It all started with India making it to the Super 8 stage of the tournament quiet comfortably. We had to defeat SouthAfrica , WestIndies & Zimbabawe to make it to the next round , the semifinals. While it was quiet a certainty that we would make it to the semis , it had just become a bit tough since all the other teams in our Super 8 group were in outstanding form and we were actually facing group leaders from each group after Zimababwe & SriLanka famously knocked out Australia before super 8 stage .
On February 22 India lost their first Super 8 game to South Africa with & huge margin denting their NRR & thus made their path to the semis very difficult.
Cut to February 24 the situation is tense as India runs a risk of not making it to the semis. In the back drop is a conflict in the Middle east which is also causing other concerns . I am on X going through the tweets trying to get a hold of both geo politics and cricket news after completing my day shift. Suddenly I see a tweet which says tickets to the T20 Worldcup semis & finals tickets are releasing at 7PM today. As has always been the case , these tickets are elusive and BookMyShow especially is notorious for having a stupid booking system where they add people to a queue once you express interest. I have been on those queues many times in the past and those never get closed in a successful booking.
But that day it was different. I was added to a short queue for Ticket to the Finals at Ahmedabad which read few lakhs waiting . I said to myself "Again the same thing ". Suddenly the queue went down to thousands and then in a few minutes to hundreds. I could not believe it. Should I be booking this ticket. How costly would that be .Will India make it to the finals. Who will I go with .Can I go alone. How will I go . All questions unanswered. I enquired with my cricket community on Whatsapp if anyone would be interested in going as I seemed to be getting closer to the online booking window. No one responded with an intent to watch the match. In your 40s you realize that your circle is shrinking & you don't have a go to gang to fall back on for every situation . Suddenly the booking window was live. 4 minutes to book the ticket. I went ahead and booked 2 tickets out of possible 4 .Idea was to cut the losses in case I didn't get to travel. Luckily the tickets were priced at 2k so i had some potential to mark that capital as a loss. So there I was with 2 tickets to the World Cup Final at Ahmedabad booked .
Over the next few days I kept this story to myself. BookMyShow had to send the physical tickets to my address only then I could travel .Luckily they were delivering to my pincode .I decided to patiently wait out the next 10 days. A lot of things had to fall in place for me to achieve my manifestation of watching India play the Final at Ahmedabad.
Over the next few days things started to align .India defeated Zimbabwe on Feb 26 setting up a virtual quarterfinal against the Windies. We defeated Windies on March 1 in a close game thanks to Sanju Samson's heroics. This set us up for a March 5 Semifinals clash with England at Wankhede .Ideally I should have booked tickets to this game .But may be destiny had other things planned. India defeated England in a game where close to 500 runs were scored and we could suppress the rampaging England only in the last over of an exciting chase set up By Jacob Bethell.
March 6th, Morning . India is in the finals . I have tickets to the finals & now I needed to make it there. There were a few things going on my personal front. It made me think about skipping the event. But eventually i felt that since nature has conspired to make my dream come true I had to do my bit and close the manifestation and desire .Narendra Modi Stadium at Ahmedabad is the biggest cricket stadium in India and Ahmedabad will host the Olympics soon. In 2011 I was too young to go and see the finals at Wankhede so probably this was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch India try to win a home WC. I roped in an old friend who is also a cricket Paglu & we decided to go .
March 6th evening we had all options on the table Road , Rail & Air travel . Road travel was gonna be tiring and was not favourable to my friend .Air travel was too expensive and was not favourable to me .We decided that rail route is going to be the best option. But there was one challenge. All trains to Ahemdabad were booked and people were on waiting list. My Friend suggested that we wait for tatkal tickets. Luckily he had an acquaintance who did the Mumbai Ahmedabad route frequently and she offered to book the tickets for us.
On 7th March we had an anxious few hours waiting for the tickets to be booked. Around 10 15 AM I got a message which said tickets are booked. Vande Bharat early morning on 8th and return train post midnight from Ahmedabad making us available for the working day on Monday. It was a pleasant news .We are finally going .
I started early on 8th March and waited at the station for the train to arrive . Initially it felt like I was stupid enough to be starting my day at 5AM on a Sunday morning to attend a game in a city 500 km away. Soon the scenery changed. Station which was largely white colored suddenly started changing to a sea of blue . Indian railways had added many special trains to Ahmedabad & I witnessed fans in their jerseys flocking the station all excited for the game in the evening . It started to look like a pre celebration of sorts in Mumbai . India is a cricket crazy nation .
I boarded the Vande Bharat for the first time . World class train similar to what I had experienced when I was in the UK in 2013 .Train sped past at max speeds of 130kmph and by lunch time we were in Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad looked all prepared .On the way got to see Anand the city of Amul . Ahmedabad was buzzing. We hired a cab for 12 hours which would cover us for the day on the Savari app.
We decided to explore the city and created a small itinerary based on available inputs on the internet. We visited the Sabarmati River Front , from there we went on to visit Sabarmati Ashram .Our next stop was to have a good Gujrati thal at Achija Gujrati Thal . After lunch we decided to have one final stop at Adalaj Stairwell .This is the same spot where Surya eventually came for his trophy photoshoot. We didn't know then that its also where Rohit & Cummins had their WC photoshoot in 2023.
Entry to the stadium was smooth although we had to walk a lot to reach Gate 2 . We reached early and therefore did not have to face massive crowds. Once inside the atmosphere was electrifying . I was mesmerized at the sight of the massive Narendra Modi Stadium . This is a beautiful place to watch cricket .The view from almost every seat in the stadium is awesome .You get a full field view from the top stands. Truly World Class .
We were greeted with awesome performances by Falguni Pathak , Sukhbir Singh and Ricky Martin in the closing ceremony . The stadium was very hot at this moment as the sun was setting right in front of our faces. I had a deep desire to watch Falguni Live at least once in my life and that was also achieved on that day . Falguni knows how to perform with big crowds , her sound was sorted and she seemed to rock the show. Sukhbir also has excellent crowd presence. Ricky Martin was alien to Indian audience and most of the youngsters didn't recognize Livin La Vida Loca . 2009 was a long time from today.
As the day progressed Sanju Ishan & Abhishek just dominated the batting and took the game away from NZ once they put India to bat after winning the toss. This is always a wrong decision in a big final unless you are the mighty Aussies. Once 250 was on the board , the game was all but settled. People were worried since England came close to chasing the score down in Wankhede .I kept telling the crowd that this is not Wankhede and it wont be an easy chase . As the wickets started falling NZ resigned to their fate.
Namo Stadium did a beautiful laser show in the mid game slot , an awesome drone show before presentation and then an amazing fireworks show after presentation. This stadium elevated the whole viewing experience to a world class experience.
We travelled back tired to Mumbai and slept off in our upper 2AC seat just like Shivam Dube did.
This was probably the most unexpected trip of the year. Looking forward to more such cricketing experiences . When you have a hobby you need to invest in it and this was one of the best investments.
This was a day of firsts
1.First outstation train from Borivali
2. First Vande Bharat
3. First interstate boys trip post marriage
4. First India game in a stadium
5. First World Cup Final in a stadium
6. First game in a stadium outside Maharashtra
7.First time I booked tickets, Usually it was hopping on to someone else's planned tickets.
Signing off for now. Will be back when I have some more pleasant firsts to share
Adding photos soon .
