Sachin, Warne, and other legends in Cricket All-Stars at New York!

~ Alok Singhal

The crowd, noise, craziness, and entertainment was all expected! Why not, the Legends of Cricket were in New York!

And, how could I have missed this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch the greats in my own backyard! Actually, i was all pumped-up as i had never been to any cricket stadium earlier to watch a match live, though i am a die-hard fan of the game. In fact, i sometimes watch multiple matches live at home – with my TV and Laptops playing them all together 🙂

So, we set out to watch first match of the Cricket All-Stars series at Citi Field, home of New York Mets, on Saturday. The stadium was absolutely beautiful…though it is for Baseball, it looked amazing with the drop-in pitch laid-out perfectly for the match.

citi field new york metscricket in new yorkcricket lineup sachin tendulkar shane warne

The line-ups of Sachin’s Blasters and Warne’s Warriors looked great though they were picked in a random draw at Times Square. I surely missed seeing Sanath Jayasuriya and Shahid Afridi!

Cricket Lineups

sachin sehwag openingsachin tendulkar battingricky ponting cricketercricket scorecardbaseball in new yorkshoaid akhtar wasim akramjacques kallisthat's outajit agarkar

As the giant screen asked us to make noise and get louder, a cheer wave started across the stadium and went on for quite sometime.

cricket noise loud cheercheer wave cricket

I was live on air as well, shouting with Warne’s fans. You can see me in white tee with camera around my neck in the video below 🙂

It was quite an entertaining match and i am sure each one of the 36,000 people in the ground enjoyed to the fullest. It would be inspiring for the American sports lovers and for the betterment of the game to have more such matches in the US.

As the Warne’s team were heading for a win, Sachin probably thought he can entertain us with an over. Guess what, he went for a six soon!

sachin tendulkar bowlingshane warne's team won over sachin'scricket handshakes

And, the presentation soon followed with Shane Warne being declared Man of the Match!

muttiah muralitharanvictory lappresentation ceremony cricket

The next 2 matches are in Houston on 11th Nov and Los Angeles on 14th. Looking forward to watching them at home 🙂

104 thoughts on “Sachin, Warne, and other legends in Cricket All-Stars at New York!”

  2. Man, You are so lucky to watch all of them in a single stage. I have only watched a live match (India vs NZ) and guess what, I am going to India vs South Africa (2nd Test at Bengaluru). You watched a t20, I’ll be watching a test. A special test (100th from ABD). I am so excited for this weekend.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. I could imagine the ambience there, and it’s certainly something to experience in life, to watch Sachin in a cricket field 🙂

    I feel so lucky to watch a test match in Bangalore, where Sachin played and Ponting was also there.

    Thanks a lot for sharing your experience and these beautiful images 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Great to know you observed the match live in the stadium…. I saw in TV (sadly)…. and what a feeling it was…so many stars together

    That first six hit by Sehwag off Donald opened floodgates of memories……
    In Fact Sehwag’s all sixes … be it of Warne or anybody … all were great

    Warny reminded why he is the great spinner…. the way he put breaks after Sehawg and Sachin was going great guns ! And Kallis is still so fit…. awesome catch he took to get rid of sachin

    I was upset Lara was out so fast… wanted to see him bat for a while

    It was great to see Jonty Rhodes again…. sweeping Ambrose for six and then hit Sachin for six by a reverse sweep…… and I never thought I will see Alan Donald bowl again and actually take a wicket ! Also it was good to see Shoiab Akhtar bowling for a change than giving commentery…….. and in the end Ponting showed he always took his cricket seriously… be it exhibition match…. he still has the habit of remaining not out and win the match.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Now that the 2nd match is also over and i watched it on TV, i feel it was better than the 1st one – just pure entertainment. The sixes kept me on my toes!

      I am so happy you expressed yourself here to this extent 🙂

      Like

      Reply

  13. Amazing dear Alok, you watched the legends in the ground. Am glad you are able to see it all live in the action at the CitiStadium. Very nice post with awesome clicks 🙂 enjoyed this much.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Yes, they all were 🙂 Making 200+ scores and also chasing it down was great to watch. The smiles on everyone’s face was brilliant ❤ Hope this becomes a half-yearly thing and then it would be so much fun 😀

        Liked by 1 person

  16. That’s great that you got to watch it live! We were planning to go too as my hubby is also a huge fan of Sachin !! But unfortunately he was tied in some work on that weekend so we didn’t buy the tickets. It looked like so much fun!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. Great photos, though I guess the exhibition match would have lacked true competition. If Shane Warne was adjudged the Man of the Match, I suppose he would have bowled well. Interestingly, even without knowing the final outcome, Warne’s team looked the stronger side on paper itself!

    Shakti

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I got the same comment earlier also, but i guess Sachin’s team was equally competitive – it is just that they did not deliver in the first 2 matches.

      Anyway, we all had a good time. Isn’t it 🙂

      Like

      Reply

  24. I see you Alok and your thrill of the match imbibed itself to the post and to me. But, I found it a little too tad, like somebody above said, Warne’s team looked stronger even on paper! To think about it is fun, the legends if cricket coming together, but very upaet with today’s match.. for sachin’s side! Sangakara’s 70 from 30 balls was awesome! Warne’s team has all the recently retired in touch with the game players. Sachin’s unforunately has only sewag! Even if it was a draw, a very skwed one i feel, i love ambrose, mcgrath, pollock but .. a game shd be played among equals in terms of form and practice.. sachin’s however lacked all that! It is a dream to see sachin and ganguly but it also reminded me of gangul in ipl for pune was it!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I would agree to some extent, but still none of the games were one sided. Sachin’s team has quality bowlers too…even they have not been able to do much.

      Also, the selectors wanted to make it fun and it would have been difficult for captains to pick the sides anyway…so we can excuse them 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  39. That must have been a experience of a kind. I’ve never watched a game at a stadium but I would like to sometime, more to feel the energy in there than watch the game itself. 😉 :D.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  41. Lovely post with great pix. I don’t know much about sports, but still read through. It was like watching a live event! You must have enjoyed it! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Well, I do agree that it’s very popular. However, I could never understand either sports or politics, except boxing, if you consider it a sport. I did try to follow cricket at times, but always lost interest. 😀

        Finally, I gave up. I just enjoy people enjoying them. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

  44. Interesting lineup. Wonder if the match was close enough because both the teams look good enough to give the other a chase! Long time since I watched any cricket. But I can recognize the old-timers whom you have mentioned here 🙂

    Destination Infinity

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  46. Oh, such a lovely blogpost! Though I’d count the experience even more lovelier! 😀 You must know, you are lucky, damn lucky! Envy. Envy. 😀
    P.S Following you back. Do visit my humble blog and perhaps, honour me with a follow too. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  47. While the cricket wasn’t great, it was really exciting to see guys like Shoaib Akhtar still bowl faster than many of our own Indian fast bowlers ;).

    And I am sure for all of you it would have been a once in a lifetime opportunity to see all of them in one stadium together. I have been to one IPL game. But yeah nothing beats seeing so many legends live together :D.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.