Vijay Hazare Trophy: Nearly 20,000 fans turn up to watch Rohit Sharma score a century

As Rohit Sharma strolled out to bat for Mumbai, against minnows Sikkim, after four hours of build-up, the crowd made it known how loud that number can really be. As he hit the first of his nine sixes in the second over, swivelling to pick up a length ball and depositing it in the crowd, the roar was deafening. An over later, he bent over to pick up a fuller ball to send it soaring over backward square leg and into the Rajasthan Sports Council offices that are inside the stadium. The employees, out of their offices to catch a glimpse, handily launched the ball back. The dozens that were brave enough to take a seat on the roof of this office complex, were sent into raptures.

A few overs later, as he charged down to hit a lofted straight drive down the ground, elbow and head position perfect as in his heydays, there was little clarity over which was under more immediate threat – the 237-run target that Sikkim had set, or the extra police personnel that were deployed here to keep the crowd in check. Ultimately, it was the former.

These were scenes reminiscent of January, when over 12,000 thronged to the Feroz Shah Kotla to catch Virat Kohli in a Ranji game, his last-ever outing in whites. Kohli, too, was playing domestic cricket on Wednesday, in a city that is mad for him. But unlike in Bengaluru, where the game was held behind closed doors, fortunes favoured the Jaipur faithful.

Indian fans love their batting stars; they come to cheer and expect centuries. On Wednesday, Rohit duly obliged, reeling off a hundred in 62 balls. The runs came handily across all parts of the ground to both pace and spin. His eventual accumulation of 155 from 93 balls was central to Mumbai’s breezy eight-wicket victory.

As Rohit Sharma strolled out to bat for Mumbai against Sikkim, the crowd in Jaipur made it known how loud that number can really be. (Express Photo by Rohit Paras Jain)

Jaipur is not the back of beyond on the cricket map. This is a stadium that annually hosts IPL games; there was a T20I game here as recently as 2021. The masses did not simply throng here for a big-ticket event; they came here for Rohit. Scores of these young men – a majority were young and almost all were men – escaped school, college, jobs, families and appointments to see Rohit.

‘Just Google my name’

The carnival atmosphere extended beyond the ground. As the star toiled in the field in the first innings, one of his fans was busy taking selfies with other spectators outside. Deepak Patel travelled from Nagpur for this game, and was dressed up in typical over-the-top superfan attire: tricolour in hand, painted on his face, adorned on his torso. His idol’s name is plastered across his chest and a tattoo under his ear reads ‘45 GOAT.’ “If Rohit is playing, I’m coming,” he says about travelling the country for games. Short of time when pressed about more details, he simply quips: “Just Google my name and you’ll find out.”

But Jaipur didn’t need to import its superfans. There were plenty in the crowd. Including 17-year-old Santosh, a local student tipped off in advance about his idol’s presence in the city by a friend enrolled in the academy adjoining this ground. “It’s only worth it if I get a chance to meet him,” he says, dejectedly stationed outside the players’ pavilion from early in the morning.

Rohit’s hand was forced to be in attendance this afternoon. The batting star had to fall in line with the BCCI diktat for all to play domestic cricket; especially in his case, when he is playing only one format internationally. His easy hundred on Wednesday (he barely celebrated, merely raising his bat once to acknowledge the crowd) may well have proved his apprehensions. It is not quite certain why or how his game will improve by reeling off these runs against minnows Sikkim or his next scheduled outing, on Saturday against Uttarakhand.

The larger scheme of things, though, could hardly add any clouds to the bright blue skies of this perfect winter afternoon. The fans turned up, in huge numbers, to watch a 50-over batting master do his thing. They got what they came for.