Mumbai is hardly likely ever to be lacking for a crowd. But this week will get a little more crowded than usual as the city bids farewell to one of its most prominent sons.
Everyone who is anyone is out to make sure they are at Wankhede Stadium, ostensibly for the second Test against West Indies, but really for the 200th and last Test of Tendulkar. Fans have travelled from around the country and the world.
The problem is the Wankhede holds only 32,000 so a lot of people will be disappointed. Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) decided to sell tickets to the public only online and, predictably, on Monday, the site crashed almost as soon as tickets became available.
In any case only 5,000 of those seats were available online. The rest, as is inevitably the way in the subcontinent, will be handed out to corporate and sponsor bigwigs and various clubs.
“We have certain channels through which tickets find their way to the members of public,” said Ravi Savant, the MCA vice president.
He said MCA has a commitment to give tickets to social and sports clubs. “These clubs in turn sell it to their members, who are members of the public … If the capacity is 30,000 and demand is 30 lakhs [three million] I cannot give tickets to everyone.”
So high is the demand in fact that it will hardly matter ultimately what Tendulkar does as a departing trick, or what happens in the Test itself. This is an event for the ages, one everyone wants to get into or be seen at (Tendulkar himself has asked for 500 tickets).
Like the Kennedy assassination, people will remember what they were doing on the last day of Tendulkar’s Test career, rather than what actually happened.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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Favourite Quote: “Real victories are those that protect human life, not those that result from its destruction emerge from its ashes,” by The late king Hussain of Jordan.
Favourite Hobby: Writing and cooking
Favourite Book: The Prophet by Gibran Khalil Gibran
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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While Huawei did launch the first smartphone with a 50MP image sensor in its P40 series in 2020, Oppo in 2014 introduced the Find 7, which was capable of taking 50MP images: this was done using a combination of a 13MP sensor and software that resulted in shots seemingly taken from a 50MP camera.
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Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
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Duminy (c), Behardien, Dala, De Villiers, Hendricks, Jonker, Klaasen (wkt), Miller, Morris, Paterson, Phangiso, Phehlukwayo, Shamsi, Smuts.
