Photo: Cricket fans wish Team India luck with sand and fire |
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Saturday March 10, 09:59 PM
Puri / Ahmedabad, Mar 10 (ANI): On the eve of the month-long World Cup extravaganza, cricket-crazy fans of the country are vying each other to offer the most unique way of wishing the Men in Blue good-luck.
Internationally acclaimed sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik has recreated the opening ceremony of the World Cup Tournament scheduled for Sunday.
He has created a mini-stadium of sand, which stands proudly on the beach in Puri, with a 15-feet-long bat and ball giving it company.
Patnaik has also, for the first time, made a movable sand sculpture - the World Cup Trophy - that he plans to carry all the way to the West Indies.
"The way the whole country is supporting Team India, we also thought we should support them in a unique way. Every year, we make sculptures for them, but this time we have made a different sculpture, which is a movable trophy. It took us 15 days to prepare this movable trophy. We plan to carry it from Puri to the West Indies," Patnaik said.
Patnaik said his World Cup Trophy had a concrete base and weighed nearly 50 kilograms.
Cricket fans were allowed to post good luck messages on the giant bat.
"It's a very nice thing that cricket fever has gripped the entire country. This sculpture is a different way of expression of cheering the team. Patnaik has really spent effort in making this thing, which is not even permanent. The team should take inspiration from this that someone has spent so much of time and energy in making this and they should bring the Cup," said Sumati Anand, a local tourist.
Elsewhere, in Ahmedabad city, a fiery artwork was an artist's way of wishing luck to the Indian team.
Mohsin Sheikh depicted the Indian cricket team as an aggressive batsman demolishing competition at the World Cup.
"What I have tried to portray in this painting is that I have placed the World Cup on the batsman's cap and tried to say that he capable of finishing any attack. Teams from different countries, like Pakistan or Australia, have been depicted by their first alphabets and the batsman is shown firing volleys of fours and sixes. It's as if the batsman has disintegrated any competition and the alphabets are flying in the sky," Sheikh said.
India, along with 15 other countries, will play for the game's most coveted prize over the next six weeks and interest is soaring at home.
The Men in Blue will play Bangladesh on March 17 and Indians across the country are stirring up support with "Cheer-for-India" campaigns. The winner will be crowned after the final in Barbados on April 28.
India, the 1983 winners, was the runners-up in the last cricket world cup in South Africa. (ANI)
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