My memories of the India-Pakistan 1996 quarter finals as a 10 year old kid

India vs Pakistan – March 9, 1996

It was the month of March in the year 1996 and my class five annual exams were due to start in a few days time. Owing to my annual exam, family outings were restricted during this period and my play time was also curtailed.

One fine Friday evening, my uncle who used to live outside India called us to inform that he would be visiting Mumbai that weekend and my parents decided that we should meet him on Saturday at his brother’s house.

Till this point, it seemed to be a good weekend and I was happy at the prospect of an outing during this exam period. My mother then came with the first of the two bad news of the day. The news was that I will have to take my mathematics book along with me and study for my annual exams at our relatives house.

The Wills World Cup 1996 was in its knock-out stages and by now I had started following cricket. Even though I was religiously supporting India in the World Cup, I did not have much idea about the famous India-Pakistan rivalry. But my parents who were also keen cricket followers knew a thing or two more than me about this rivalry. 

No match until you finish your mathematics preparation

Coming back to our weekend plan, the Saturday in question was the day of the quarter-finals between India & Pakistan to be played in Bangalore. Hence, it was decided that we would leave our house in time to watch the entire match at our relatives house.

At least, I thought it would be “we” who would watch the match. But my mother came with the second bad news of the day that I will have to first complete my studies in order to watch the match. In other words, I will not get to watch the match. So, it would be “they” who will watch the match and not “me”.

I tried my best to negotiate this diktat that I should be allowed to watch the match initially in case the Indian team bats first. But my mother was not in a mood to bargain.

So, when we reached our relatives house just before the toss; I was praying to god that India should bat second. Unfortunately for me, god had other plans; Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin won the toss and decided to bat first. 

The start

So, while the Indian openers Navjot Singh Sidhu & Sachin Tendulkar were taking guards to face Waqar Younis & Aaqib Javed; I was opening my first chapter of mathematics. The only concession my mother gave me was to allow me to watch the score after the stipulated time interval.

The definition of this interval obviously rested with my mother. India had made a good start and I was trying to accelerate my pace at mathematics so that I could watch the remainder of the Indian innings. 

After some time, my aunt came and announced that Tendulkar had reached a century. I knew this was improbable given the fact that he was in his 20s only fifteen minutes back. So, I could sense that something was wrong, and the thing that was wrong was that Tendulkar had departed.

There was a big commotion in the house as everyone was worried that India’s chances of winning the match had gone down with Tendulkar’s wicket. This was a normal scenario with the Indian batting in the 1990s. 

Jadeja’s onslaught and I get to watch the match

I went back to mathematics and Siddhu took control of the proceedings in Bangalore. He was eventually out for 93 runs. As the Indian innings was approaching its end, I was also close to calling it a day in the field of mathematics.

That’s when my mother had a change of heart and she told that I could watch the death-overs of the Indian innings. Well, this change of heart was actually the result of the assault that Ajay Jadeja was carrying out. He took more than 20 runs of a Waqar Younis over and scored 45 runs off only 25 balls. Thanks to Jadeja’s onslaught, India ended up scoring 287 runs in 50 overs. 

The players went for the innings break and I quickly finished my mathematics session just in time before the start of the Pakistani innings. The way Pakistani openers started their innings, it seemed to me that I was better off studying rather than watching the helpless condition of the Indian bowlers.

And when Pakistani captain Aamer Sohail pointed fingers at Venkatesh Prasad after hitting him for a boundary, elders in the house were contemplating shutting off the television sets.