As a venue, few grounds come close to the HPCA Stadium here in terms of its beauty and surroundings. The edgy thriller that the ongoing Test series has been between India and Australia could not have provided the ground with a better contest to host its debut Test either.
But even though it is the series decider, the reception on the opening day of the fourth Test was disappointing. Despite it being a weekend, more than half the seats at the 23,000 capacity stadium in the Himalayan foothills, flanked by the Dhauladhar range, remained empty. Halfway through the day, school children were bussed in to fill up but even that wasn’t enough.
That it’s the Indian captain’s brilliance in the shorter format of the game which attracts the crowd and not the game itself was evident from the fact that all the roads leading to the stadium had hawkers selling blue Virat Kohli jerseys. “But this is a Test match, you don’t wear coloured T-shirts in this,” remarked an elderly gentleman, only to be countered by a group of youngsters. “Uncle we are bothered only about Virat, who cares about the format or colour,” they chorused, putting on the jerseys.
Even though there was excitement among some of the youngsters who waited patiently to enter the ground early in the day, it soon petered out. That Kohli decided to sit out the game because of an injured shoulder did not help, with several expressing disappointment. And with the nature of the beast such that there would be no winner at the end of day’s play, several left midway, not sure of returning for the remaining days.
Students from Mount Carmel School, Gaggal, brought in for a “school trip”, questioned why there were so few fours and sixes hit by the Australian batsmen. “There are so many more runs scored in IPL,” they said. Not exactly the questions a newly designated Test venue would like to answer to its younger fans vis-à-vis the longest format.
The organisers had hoped crowds would come in from neighbouring cities in Punjab and from Delhi for the weekend but were disappointed.
“It’s weekend and people from Punjab and Delhi come here in good numbers. We thought they would come for the match as well but we now hope that tomorrow being Sunday, things will be better,” one of the HPCA officials said.
To their credit, the movement and access to the venue was fairly smooth and relaxed, unlike at most venues across India, despite a heavy security deployment that was effective yet unobtrusive. But the numbers they expected never turned up.
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy series is locked 1-1 after three closely-fought matches on varied surfaces in Pune, Bangalore and Ranchi.
