Our team landed in the city of Nawabs, Lucknow, to get their scheduled practice before the game against GL at the Green Park Stadium, Kanpur. GL played KKR on 19th May which is why our team was located in the closest city – Lucknow. The next day the team went to practice at 4‘o’ clock in the afternoon when the mercury level was soaring at around 44⁰c. In these sweltering conditions our players arrived at the Babu Banarsi Das (BBD) university stadium, unaware of the love and support that awaited them from hordes of local fans.

With the first glimpse of our captain, Rohit Sharma, there was a huge cheer from the west stand. There were over a 1000 fans cheering and hooting for us to beat the Gujarat Lions. The players recognized all the passionate fans and acknowledged every cheer. The players were surprised with the intensity and the passion of the crowd as they cheered every shot played in the nets. Ricky Ponting got the loudest cheer when he went on to check one of the practice pitches, the smile on Ricky’s face showed that even the most experienced Punter loved the way this crowd was chanting his name. The eager fans became shutterbugs as they kept clicking pictures of their favourite players in the practice session. They didn’t care about the sun beating down on them, they just wanted to cheer for their heroes, and such was the exceptional passion of the crowd. Even the players enjoyed this practice session because of the intensity. A happy Ambati Rayudu gave away his training cap to one of the fans and clicked selfies with them. Jos Buttler, Martin Guptill gave their autographs to an excited bunch of kids who had gathered at the west stand. It was an endearing experience for the team ahead of their match against GL. We were truly touched by the love, affection and enthusiasm of the fans and the people of Lucknow. Thank you Lucknow!