The nomadic life of Indian Super Fans

The Indian team is giving final touches to a hard day's grind at practice in a bilateral series that will serve as the final dress rehearsal for the T20 World Cup, where any result other than defending the title will be termed an underachievement.

- Rasesh Mandani

The new bunch of Indian Super Fans inspired by Sudhir Kumar Gautam.

Head coach Gautam Gambhir spots a lone fan in the stands. He has a sharp beard and an upright moustache dyed saffron, white, and green. Gambhir hands the fan a match ticket for the following day's T20I tie against New Zealand in Visakhapatnam.The proud ticket-holder Rajan Thakur, 32, comes from Delhi and is one among the growing tribe of India cricket team’s superfans, whose ubiquitous presence livens the atmosphere in stadiums.

Inspired by the first Indian super fan Sudhir Kumar Gautam — the thin man with a shaved head, tri-colour body paint, Tendulkar on his heart, India flag in one hand and conch in the other, Thakur wants to embrace the nomadic existence for Team India but he is yet to win support from within the Indian team like Sudhir, who is unfailingly gifted match tickets on pre-match days.

Thakur is hopeful that after catching the head coach's attention, things will get smoother for him to access stadiums during the World Cup. There have been days when he purchased black-market tickets worth ₹8000 to get in. Gambhir probably doesn't know but this is Thakur’s second coming as a superfan.

“In 201, I would paint myself with Virat Kohli’s name on my body. Then, I met with an accident and had to take a break,” said Thakur. “I have resumed from the recent Ro-Ko series. But now, I don’t cheer for one player. I wear a Team India T-shirt. That means all the players wave back to me, when I call them.” The Kohli-styled beard earns him rave reviews.