‘Sachin mania’ continues to rule. Even as the country celebrated the 40 birthday of Sachin Tendulkar, cricket-crazy fans of the twin cities lapped up almost every ticket available as on Wednesday for the big match featuring Mumbai Indians (MI) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium here on May 1. The match is scheduled to start at 4 p.m.
According to a SRH official, all tickets in the denominations of Rs. 300, Rs. 500 and Rs. 700 were sold out at the Coffee Day outlets and at the Gymkhana Grounds tickets counter. “Only a few tickets of higher denominations are available,” he said.
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The craze for the match featuring Mumbai Indians is understandable given the fact that since last year every time Sachin has played in the city there has been a talk of it being his last appearance.
The contest also features some of the big names like Ricky Ponting, Kieron Pollard lined up against the fiery pace of Dale Steyn and Ishant Sharma. “I have not seen such a mad rush for tickets before. We were flooded with requests for this match even before the IPL actually began,” said E. Gopal, former EC member of HCA.
Interestingly, once when Sachin Tendulkar came to the city to play a first-class game by train from Mumbai before his Test debut, he waited at the Nampally railway station for about an hour for Gopal to be taken to the hotel in Secunderabad. “Those days there were no mobiles and we were not sure who was coming and who was waiting,” he recalled. “But, this young boy was very cool and humble despite having to wait for that long. Honestly, we never thought he would be such a phenomenon,” he added.
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