Sydney: When cricket is at its best, a handful of diehard fans from the UAE make it a point to be present there. Irrespective of the distance or the time they will have to take off from their work or business, those have never been a limiting factor.
Shyam Bhatia, a prominent cricket enthusiast and promoter who regularly honours domestic players through his Shyam Bhatia awards for cricketing excellence, stands out among all fans even from the sub-continent simply because he has watched all the World Cup finals since 1975. Come March 29 at Melbourne, he will be watching his 11th World Cup final.
Bhatia has made this trip special as he will be carrying historic moments from Australia to the UAE for his museum at his residence in Dubai. Bhatia visited the legendary Donald Bradman’s place of birth and museum, met Rina Hore, Executive Director of the Bradman foundation and in the presence of museum curator David Wells, the two agreed to exchange information between the two museums. Following this agreement, the voices of great cricketers can now be heard in Bhatia’s museum through a software that will have comments of players talking about their outstanding performances.
“I will also be creating Bradman’s history on one of the walls of the museum, soon,” said Bhatia.
The impact of Bhatia’s long years of devoted passion to the game is that almost all great cricketers are well known to him. By distributing cricket kits through his Cricket for Care charity to budding cricketers who cannot afford to play the game, he is a friend of almost all cricket association officials around the world too.
He was at the Sydney Cricket Ground for the first quarter-final with his wife Vimla, and an equally passionate cricket loving brother Lachu Bhatia, watching the match from the Bradman pavilion in the most prestigious and prominent Bradman lounge of the stadium. As he was taking me to the lounge, players like Kevin Pietersen and Brian Lara stopped to talk to him. Many cricketers have gifted their gloves, bat and caps that they had worn during some of their memorable knocks to his cricket museum in Dubai.
Seats in the Bradman lounge are the best and comfortable like in the cinemas with a beautiful view of the action. Hostesses continue to offer snacks and drinks like it is in the upper classes in a plane. Steve Waugh was also seen introducing Bhatia to some of his friends as the man behind a cricket museum in the one of the most unexpected of places in the world.
Presently, there are only a few who were lucky to be present for the first World Cup final in 1975, but for everyone that image of Clive Lloyd holding the trophy from the balcony of the Lord’s ground is unforgettable. When the legendary bowler Sir Richard Hadlee was asked about his World cup memories, he picked Lloyd holding aloft the trophy at Lords. “It is a classic image, a historic photo; the game finished at 8.40pm at night which shows what happens with no time restrictions. It was so slowly paced throughout, but a magnificent match to watch,” said Hadlee.
Stadium authorities in Sydney are gearing up for the semi-finals and one volunter’s first remark was: “This semi-final will break all sound barriers with the Indian fans now set to arrive and ready to scream all day. Australia may beat India in the match, but surely not in terms of the noise likely to be made by Indian fans during the match!”
