Eye of the spectator: An emotional fan's roller-coaster journey with Indian cricket 

Heartbreaks and more heartbreaks

The tied Test match in Chennai was a pleasant shock for the Indian cricket fans

Sometimes a cricket fan is subjected to repeated heart-breaks which may lead to total wreckage. The first time that happened to me was when Javed Miandad hit that famous six off the last ball bowled by Chetan Sharma in 1986. All of a sudden I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach and my heart stopped pumping for a fraction of a second.

It again happened in the tied Test match against Australia in Madras in the same year. Incidentally, that was the first match I watched at the stadium and the crowd present at the stadium was not ample enough to smother the bereavement. When Maninder Singh was adjudged leg before wicket with the scores leveled, everything came to a standstill.

One heartbreak was followed by another when India lost to Pakistan in a Test match at Bangalore in 1987 by a margin of 16 runs. When we thought our bad times were behind us, we were dealt a lethal blow when the then-defending champion India were knocked out by England in the semi-final of the Reliance World Cup 1987. When Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting swept India out of that World Cup, I felt like the earth under me caving in.

The advent of Sachin Tendulkar re-kindled the interest of the Indian cricket fans

For some of us, that was the final nail in the coffin. For some of the members of the fan club, the successive defeats were too much to handle and they had every reason to believe that they had enough and should leave the scene.

Just as I was contemplating to quit watching the game I loved the most, came the little master from Mumbai into the cricket horizon by the name Sachin Tendulkar which regenerated my interest in the game. I was back into the business. Nonetheless, the disappointments continued to pour in as India lost the World Cups in 1992,1996 and 1999.

When your team is on a winning streak, you feel ecstatic to continue watching while in defeat you never give up and keep trying your luck in the next match. Hence, it is a vicious circle and once you get sucked into it, there is no turning back. But at the end of the day, it is all worth the pleasure it brings to you in times of triumph.