New Delhi, Jan 30: The word ‘Aura’, with its Latin and Ancient Greek origins saying it as another word for wins, is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as a distinctive ambience or quality generated by a person or thing.
If one were to describe what aura meant to cricket fans in New Delhi on January 30, 2025, look no further than them thronging the Arun Jaitley Stadium in heaps to see the talismanic Virat Kohli in action on day one of the Ranji Trophy Group D game between Delhi and Railways.
Since the time Kohli’s confirmation for playing the match arrived, the atmosphere became an electric one, with narrow roads in and around the stadium buzzing with enthusiasm. It slowly brought in the realisation that the Delhi-Railways game was not just going to be another Ranji Trophy game, where empty stands have been permanent features.Fans were to get free entry, and had to show Aadhaar card to get into the stadium. By Wednesday evening, the broadcast crew had fixed the cameras in stadium’s periphery, after the rights holders raced quickly to get the game on roster.
For two days of the practice sessions, every move of Kohli was captured and talked with awe by media, fans, age-group cricketers and DDCA officials. The anticipation was for 10,000 fans to arrive for day one’s play, but Thursday morning threw a completely different curveball.From as early as 3am, fans – irrespective of age, gender, height and layers of winter clothing – lined up outside the stadium to get an entry into the venue. By 8am, it snowballed into a packed crowd outside gates 16 and 17, with chants of Kohli and Royal Challengers Bengaluru ruling the roost in their quest to catch a live glimpse of their hero playing in Ranji Trophy after more than 12 years.Some fans were also young women who had come all alone to catch Kohli’s glimpse and were overwhelmed by men jumping over barriers to join the long crowd outside the two gates, fearing a stampede could happen. There were more fans waiting to come in, but were away from entering the stadium due to the nearby road being closed due to VIP movement (as PM Narendra Modi went to Rajghat to pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi).By 9:20am, the Gautam Gambhir Stand was fully packed and gate 18 was thrown open for fans to fill the lower tier of the Bishan Singh Bedi Stand, with the crowd numbers at upwards of 15,000. (PTI)
