Southern States - Karnataka   

Cricket holds Mysore in thrall

By Our Staff Correspondent

MYSORE March 8. With the prospects of India entering the semi-finals of the World Cup cricket tournament in South Africa brightening after its victory over Kenya, cricket fans in pace bowler Javagal Srinath's hometown, Mysore, are ecstatic. The cricket-crazy city, which went into raptures after India's magnificent victory over Pakistan last week, will now send a 10-feet-high and 50-feet-wide Tricolour, bearing signatures of fans, to South Africa for display at the venues where India's matches will be held.

The Mayor, T.B. Chikkanna, was the first to affix his signature on the huge flag followed by Bhashyam Swamiji. Scores of cricket lovers, school and college students, political leaders, traders, labourers, women, and others followed suit.

The Tricolour will be send to office of the President of Board of Control for Cricket in India, Jagmohan Dalmiya, in Kolkata en route South Africa, an organiser said.

Obviously, the cricket fans in the city had come a long way from their emotional outbursts against the pathetic display of India during its encounter with Australia in the earlier stages of the tournament when effigies of captain Saurav Ganguly were publicly burnt and slogans shouted against the team. In view of the public outcry, police posted two armed constables to guard the Kuvempunagar residence of Srinath.

Apparently, the string of Indian victories in the tournament so far, particularly the convincing fashion in which Pakistani pace attack was put to sword by the batting maestro, Sachin Tendulkar, had brought about a change of mind.

If a game involving India is underway, business transactions are affected with people preferring to sit glued to their television sets. Betting between friends has also become the order of the day.

However, students are clearly upset with the World Cup schedule. The tournament is coming in the way of their preparations for the annual examinations scheduled for April. In the midst of the cricket euphoria, the KPTCL has emerged as the villain with its frequent power shutdowns.

Fearing the wrath of cricket lovers, the KPTCL has been generous enough to reschedule power shutdowns so that it does not clash with India's matches. But an unexpected power cut in a locality in the city during the height Indo-Pakistan fixture threatened to snowball into a major conflagration between the KPTCL staff and the residents.

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