Sydney is India as a fan tsunami in blue hits town

SYDNEY: It’s war. It’s a pressure cooker. This is going to be cut throat. If you thought this was talk in the dressing and hotel rooms of teams India and Australia ahead of their semi-final clash, you need to be in Sydney for the real thing. This is a fan war. Never before in the history of Indian cricket have its fans made so much impact on the narrative of the World Cup. In fact they are discussed as much as their players are, so much so that much of the worry in the Australian camp is the multitudes of Indian fans who have flown into Sydney from across the world and from other Australian cities.

Tiger Air, the low cost regional Australian airline’s fares to Sydney have gone up almost 300 per cent. An off peak Melbourne-Sydney one way normally costs about 100 Australian dollars. That has jumped to 300 to 350 dollars on March 25 and 26 morning.  Yakshak, a Punjabi boy who works at the Melbourne airport remarked. “Every Indian in Melbourne seems to be headed to Sydney.”

Of all people, this is making the Australians a tad nervous. “I call on all Australian cricket lovers to paint the SCG gold on Thursday. We need your support. #goldout,”, Australian captain Michael Clarke tweeted.

Batsman Steve Smith tweeted, immediately after Australia’s quarter-final victory versus Pakistan, “Great win by the boys last night. Back to Sydney now. Can’t wait for the semi-final vs India. Let’s fill the place with Gold!”

And James Faulkner revealed that Indian fans are part of the Aussie team dinner table discussion. “We were talking about it last night at dinner, the last game we played here it definitely felt like that,” Faulkner said. “The passion the Indian fans show toward their cricket team is sensational, so we’re definitely expecting that.”

Ordinary Aussies are pumped up even in far away mountain towns like tiny Mansfield in Victoria. Two days ago a sixty something lady on her afternoon walk before heading off to a tennis game, noticed this Indian looking writer and said, “You should be in Sydney son. The war is there.”

Meanwhile, the streets of Sydney have been turned into Bandra, Churchgate, Karol Bagh, Park Street, Brigade Road, Bangalore and the beach strip in Chennai. There’s Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil and even Bengali heard in conversations on the streets. Near the Kings Cross station in East Sydney, not far from the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground, Rohit a businessman said, “I decided a week ago that I had to come. Luckily I had a visa, but wasn’t getting tickets. I booked business class and came just for this semi-final game.”

Jugal Kantelia, Director of a very high-end travel company in the UK Platinum Travel Lounge and her husband along with 16 other Indians from Leicester, England came here as the World Cup started and have been following the Indian team for each of its matches. “We have literally shut shop to be with Team India. We do not know what has come over us. But cricket is all that keeps us together. It is a religion, a festival, a passion, a habit, and some say even a curse. But it’s a beautiful curse. May we all be cursed,” she said with a laugh at a downtown Sydney bar, watching the grand New Zealand run chase against South Africa in the other semi-final.

But managing fans is a serious business which is being done professionally by the Swami Army, easily the most organised and well known Indian fan community network, based in Australia and spreading globally.

Formed during India’s tour to Australia in Season 2003/04 by a group of 10 die-hard Indian cricket supporters, using the Swami Army moniker, inspired by the British “Barmy Army”, fan club, the Swamy Army has become the rallying point of all Indian fans in Australia. They help with everything from match tickets, to facilitating travel and of course bringing the carnival atmosphere to the cricket grounds.

Kartik Ayyalasomayajula, who migrated to Australia about a decade ago is one of the co-founders of this the Swami Army. Based in Melbourne, he and his friends from Melbourne and Sydney, Amit Grover, Anoop Kalra, Manav Saini, Rakesh Jampala, Angadh Oberoi and Sumit Grover have made this into a huge fan movement. Having landed in Sydney from Melbourne for the semi-final, Ayyalasomayajula spoke to Herald, “Yes, we are here. We will be in front of gate C with all the performers and the songs.”

In a detailed interview (See the World Cup section in our sports pages), he spoke about how the World Cup and the Swami Army have fed off each other. “The presence and the power of Indian fans in this World Cup has been noticed. This has added to our own image and the spirit of what we do. People in India have started taking us very seriously.”

And what has the Swami Army done in return? “We have truly made this into such an exciting grand carnival, helped of course by the Indian team’s performance,” Ayyalasomayajula, told Herald.

As the whole of India prays for Team India to get to the finals for a shot at the Cup, our army of fans have won hearts and of course the World Cup of fan support.