Cricket World Cup: Offerings ensure God’s batting for India

If there is a God, the Indian­ cricket team will win convincingly today and go on to storm the World Cup final on Sunday.

Michael Clarke at training at the SCG yesterday with Shane Warne. Picture: Phil Hillyard

If there is a God — and like all good Hindus, the Wadhwa family in New Delhi believes there are many — the Indian­ cricket team will win convincingly today and go on to storm the World Cup final in Melbourne on Sunday.

But in a household — and country — where cricket is its own religion, they are leaving nothing to chance.

For the most ardent Indian cricket fans gearing up for today’s Australia v India game, a small puja (Hindu offering) to the gods is part of their preparation for the all-important semi-finals clash.

“Definitely it works!” said Ankit Wadhwa, 31, draped and painted in India’s tricolours for the family ceremony, when asked of the effectiveness of prayer on such occasions.

“It’s not only me. All Indian people pray that India should win the match. It’s in the blood of all Indians that they believe if you want to facilitate your wish, our God will help us and give us blessings.”

Cricket-mad India will come to a standstill tomorrow from 9am when its team fights it out for the right to defend its World Cup championship title.

Big screens are going up in malls and pubs but also in workplaces across the country in the hope of luring hundreds of millions of Indians into at least turning up for work, if not adding to the sum productivity of the day.

An ESPNcricinfo survey of 6000 Indian cricket fans found that as many as 34 per cent confirmed they would call in sick in order to watch the office-hours game today, with a plucky 2 per cent planning to claim their house had been burgled.

The Wadhwas’ Delhi businesses, a motorbike showroom and property development firm, will certainly be closed today and all staff given “an off” for the game, which will be broadcast across India and in six regional languages. Cognisant of the uphill battle they face, many corporate firms have also granted leave or declared the day meeting-free.

KPMG’s head of people performance and culture, Shalini Pillai, said today was a “time to celebrate India reaching the semi-final” and so the company had declared a day off for all employees.

Indian cricket fans have flown from all points of the globe to eliminate Australia’s home-ground advantage today, with estimates suggesting 70 per cent of all tickets sold have been for the visiting team’s fans.

If that worries the Australian skipper, Michael Clarke, he wasn’t letting on yesterday.

“We’ve played in India a number of times and they out-support us there as well. We know we’ve got the support of the Australian public. We’ve felt it the whole tournament, and we’ll feel it again tomorrow, whether it’s 30 per cent of the fans here or 50 per cent of the fans.”

Perhaps more surprisingly, the extraordinary support for the visit­ing side sparked little more enthusiasm from the Indian players themselves, who insisted their fans be locked out of yesterday’s training session. Indian supporters had instead to make do with craning for views through an old iron gate, with only star batsman Virat Kohli rewarding their patience by signing autographs for those deft enough to push souvenirs through the bars.

Back in India, illicit punting on the game has reached dizzying heights, with the country’s thousands of illegal bookies doing a brisk business yesterday.

“Thousands of crores of rupees would be at stake from India alone during the semi-finals,” a police officer involved in investigation into illegal betting told The Times of India.

“Overall, most money is placed on India to go on to win the World Cup second time in a row.”

Bookies have Australia going into today’s match as lagayi (favourite) and India as khayi (underdog), offering odds of 50-52, though that rate will likely fluctuate significantly during the game as Indian punters place bets on every ball, player, over and wicket.