On Sundays, the stations on the elevated MRTS line from Beach to Velachery are so forsaken that even whispers echo. There was a small difference, last Sunday. Clusters of people were seen throughout the day at the Chepauk railway station, peering through the gaps in the cement lattice-works on the wall facing the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, where an ICC World Cup match between England and South Africa was in progress.
Some of the cricket-gazers were passengers — either waiting for a train or having alighted from one. Some had travelled to the station just to watch the match from there.
Dinesh Kumar and M. Kumar — students of a college on Old Mahabalipuram Road — made the trip for the excitement of watching a World Cup match from close quarters. Without money for tickets, they were content with a “key-hole” view of a premier match.
Watching cricket through these lattice-works is an energy-sapping exercise. The ticketless spectators don't get to see the action at both wickets — only one at a time. They watch the striker's end and, at change of overs, scurry to look through another gap.
Imagine the scramble for “vantage-points” on March 20 when India faces West Indies at Chepauk!
