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The special charter was not scheduled to have 10 members of the Indian cricketing team on board. They were the last-minute arrivals. Some of the players like Dravid and Srinath had decided to stay back in Johannesburg and take their scheduled flight the next day. But Ganguly, Tendulkar, Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Nehra, Parthiv Patel, Sehwag, Bangar and Harbhajan had changed their travel plans and decided to take the first flight home.

Tendulkar was the first to board the flight after the other passengers had settled in. He came in looking grim. The planeload of cricket fans looked at him in embarrassed silence as he tugged at his bag to free it from some impediment in the aisle. As he started to look for his seat, someone from the back shouted, "Hi, Sachin!" The Master Blaster smiled tentatively. The moment of shared apology broke the ice. In the next instant, spontaneous applause broke out. Sachin’s smile spread and he waved warmly at his fans as he made his way down the cramped rows of the economy class.

A couple of minutes later, Ganguly walked in with his wife and child. He was followed by other teammates. Another, and more thunderous, round of applause echoed through the plane. Ganguly was at home, at last.

Much before the final rites of the Indian challenge were brutely performed by the Australians on that fateful day of March the twentythird, the thought of going back home without the Cup had come to haunt the Indian team. At the nets, a day before the final, the players appeared hell-bent on fighting the demons of a possible defeat. They were desperate not to lose. "Kya muh dikhayenge? Ghar kaise jayenge?" They had to win the Cup; not because it was the ultimate prize in cricket but because it was a ticket to a happy homecoming. Fortyfive days in a foreign land, with each day adding huge volumes to the expectations from them, perhaps weighed heavily on their minds. They did their best, but on the day of reckoning their best was not good enough. The party on the night of March 23 did not happen, and almost all of the 21,000 or so Indians who had gone into the Wanderers in the morning waving the Tricolour went to sleep that night drunk on sadness.

That, however, was another day and the fans’ spirit had not been humbled. Even before the players had reached their seats, a scramble ensued to shake hands with the heroes. The players obliged the gushing fans patiently. The flight was delayed by over an hour as order could not be restored for a head count and pre-takeoff formalities. Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Sardesai and Gundappa Vishwanath, the greats of another generation, watched indulgently as they were jostled and pushed by fans of the now generation. "I have sympathy for them and Indian cricket," Vishwanath said aloud to himself. "They did very well to reach the finals. But it was just not their day."

The day, however, had an electric feel to it. Right from 8 am onwards, a steady stream of Indians poured into the stadium. The Tricolour fluttered joyously in the breeze and chants of "Bharat Mata ki jai" and "Come on India, dikha do" rent the air as the players practised on the grounds before the start of the match. Indians greeted each other with slogans and thumbed down the Australians. As the two teams stood in formal wear for the national anthems to be played, a huge cheer went up. When Jana Gana Mana`85 came on, women supporters were so overcome by patriotic fervour that they broke down and wept unabashedly. The 21,000 Indians, out of the 31,000 spectators present at the Wanderers, sang the anthem in one voice. The stage was set for a perfect takeoff for the Cup — bees saal baad. But it was not to be.

The on-board service started shortly after the Air-India Boeing lumbered out of the South African airspace carrying VVIPs and others back home. Ganguly presented to the media and the fans the brave face of the team. He smiled a lot, joked a lot and even discussed cricket. Tendulkar and others, in the meanwhile, sat glued to their seats, signing autographs and talking little. Perhaps, they had nothing to say despite the cheer that their fans were trying to create around them.

Just then the well-known singer Abhijit came into the economy class to exchange greetings with friends. He joined the group that had gathered around Ganguly. Laughter and banter flowed as easily as the generous helping of spirits. Television personality Rajdeep Sardesai persuaded Abhijit to sing. Vishwanath goaded him on. He broke into a song. The party had begun.

But Netaji was not at peace with himself. "I don’t mind the lakhs that I have lost," he insisted on telling disinterested co-passengers. "This money I can make up in two days. What is bothering me is that Vijay Mallaya (liquor baron) had fixed the match. He had bet billions of rupees on an Australian win. I was told about it two days before the match but I didn’t believe it. But it is true. Please believe me that this fellow Mallaya has paid Sourav five hundred crore of rupees, Sachin 300 crore and Zaheer 100 crore to lose the match. Inki to zindagi ban gayi na. Par mera kya hoga?" The fans ignored him. He gulped two very large Patialas and walked down the aisle to have his photo taken with Sourav and Sachin! "This is for the children," he said sheepishly and proceeded hastily to grab another drink. "This is Air-India," he said by way of explanation, "They are not like other foreign airlines on which you can drink till morning. They will announce dinner in five minutes and stop serving whisky. Phir main apna kota poora karne kaha jaonga? Bhai sahib, aap bhi chaar drink le kar rakh lo. They will come in handy at night. Paisa vasool lo."

On the day of the match, Netaji had occupied himself full time with his cell phone. The only point of interest to him was not the action on the ground but the scoreboard. And as the Australians piled run after run, his voice started to lose sound quality. After Australia had hit the 100-run mark without a loss, he grew so frantic that he almost toppled over while trying to rush to the bar and speak on the phone simultaneously. That’s when he also spotted actress Shilpa Shetty. She had been sitting right behind him all the while. "Bhai sahib," he urgently asked a passerby, "Yeh Shilpa hai na jisko woh Mallaya laya hai?"

The man nodded dumbly at him. Netaji searched for his crony and yelled at him to get the camera double quick. The drink interval was on and a small crowd had collected around Shilpa for photographs and autographs. Netaji shoved his way through the group and went and stood right next to her. He spoke to her for a minute and she smiled back politely. The group fell back taking him to be a man of some importance. The kurta-pyjama and the dark Ray-Ban helped create the aura of authority. The crony came rushing and took a picture. Netaji next proceeded to a mature woman sitting next to Shilpa and had another photo taken with her. He completely ignored Nafisa Ali and failed to recognise Vijay Mallaya.

"But why did you click yourself with that fat woman?" his crony asked him curiously. "Arrey woh Shilpa Shetty ki maa hai. The photo with Shilpa is for showing to friends. The photo with her mother is for showing to my wife." "But why did you not get a snap with Nafisa Ali?" the crony asked again. "Us ke saath kyon photo karu? (Why should I get a picture with that woman?). Shilpa is okay."

The mood at the Wanderers had become restive by the time the Australians had completed 200 runs. The Tricolour holders and the bugle sounders were still going strong but the rest of the fans were finding their interest tilting more towards the bar. The two large bars on the Unity Stand were packed to capacity with even a larger number waiting to get in. Beers were being ordered in dozens and were being gulped down at the same pace as Ponting was hitting runs. Most people had turned their backs to television sets in the bar. They were concentrating hard on the specially crafted World Cup beer mugs, expecting a miracle to jump out of the golden liquid.

"I don’t want the Australians to win," a White middle-aged woman said as she joined the Indians at the bar table. "They have made the game too aggressive. I hate it when Bret Lee gesticulates like a savage after taking a wicket. He looks like a barbarian. The genteelness has gone out of the game and if the Australians win, other teams will also start behaving like them. This should not happen. I want India to win," she said emphatically. The fellow travellers nodded sympathetically and clutched on to their cup even harder. They knew that the memorabilia cup would be the only cup they would be going home with.