Ever been to a cricket stadium?

Mumbai Indians vs Kolkatta Knight Riders! The IPL marketing machine successfully sucked me into its cricket maelstorm and this was a match-up that finally brought me into a cricket stadium for the first time in my life!
Maelstorm it was definitely..with Wankhede Stadium as the vortex this time, and just my luck - its probably the last stadium you want to be a spectator in.
The in/out queues were crazy....the stadium was definitely overcrowded...and me and wifey promised ourselves that we'd never ever come to Wankhede again.Here's some of the things you should know if you're planning to be brave:
-If the match starts at 8, plan to reach the stadium by 6:30 because you should expect a queue and no one follows seat numbering, so you wont get the best seats if you reach late.
-You can probably sneak in a couple of sandwiches and a pint of mineral water in your shirt/jeans, but dont carry any bags
-Once you're seated, forget going to the restroom or going out for snacks - unless you dont mind negotiating local train kind of crowds.
-Wankhede has this stupid system of selling water in small plastic bags with a straw! each bag is 40 bucks (yes-40) and god knows where they fill the water from. I think its an organised ripoff, since they dont allow you to carry your own water inside.
-You can get an icecream bar for 40 bucks too...
-carry a radio if possible, since you probably wont be able to make out who got out and who came in to bat!
-There are NO FANS in Wankhede. Who the heck was the designer of this place? There is zero ventilation, and Wankhede probably owns the record for most calories burned by a crowd in fanning themselves.
All said and done, Wankhede is a sorry place to be in, and I hope they demolish it and rebuild it.
Obviously there are advantages to watching a match at home or at a sports bar, but there are some things only a stadium can give you...
- All the warm-up stuff before the match and in the breaks isnt shown on TV, so if watching some hunks in half pants is your thing, you'll love it
- The Mexican wave thingy is cool...ifyou start one..you'll love watching it ripple around the stands and coming back - we must have done some 5-6 continuous ones!
- The music and chanting in the stadiums is relentless and really funny!

I hope to watch a match in a good stadium one day..maybe in Australia.
But No Wankhede for me!