India vs Afghanistan: Men in Blue Prepare for Super Eight Clash at Historic Kensington Oval against Rashid Khan's Men

The historic Kensington Oval cricket ground at Bridgetown in Barbados is all set to host India vs Afghanistan Super Eight clash of the T20 World Cup on Thursday. It's a ground which hasn't proved lucky for the Men in Blue as they have lost both T20I games they played here. Reports Meenakshi Rao

Bridgetown (Barbados): An unbeaten India, put through a convulsive pitch grind in New York, is finally in cricketing climes of the Caribbean where the game is a legend, where legends of the game walk live and where India will open their account in the Super 8s at a legendary ground with small boundary and big history.

Yes, it is the Kensington Oval where Rohit Sharma’s Men in Blue have been practising hard for the last two days in a bid to square up the Oval in a match against a fiery and dangerous Afghanistan side. It’s all set – a sunny-side-up sky, no rain prediction, audiences ready to move to the calypso beats and a bar all brimming to take care of the party stands.

The Caribbean sports a unique cricketing atmosphere which houses a surround system full of the Wesley Halls, the Gordon Greenidges and the Desmond Haynes coming down from the placards at the stadium to shake hands with a Kohli or a Rashid.

Cricket finally greets you 15 days into the tournament, just as you land – a big cricket ball for selfies, T20 World Cup’s assortment of buntings promising an 'Out Of The World' experience, the immigration guy talking cricket and the stadium itself bespoke of the history it sits on.

The Kensington Oval, though having a colonial hangover in its name, boasts of an 1882 birth and the first Test match between England and West Indies being played in January of 1895. It was once a pastureland owned by the Kensington Plantation which leased four acres to the Pickwick Cricket Club to develop it as a cricket ground with a clubhouse.

The original structure was dismantled in 2005 to build what is now a petite circle upgraded on a $25 million American bank loan to be in the digitals and the stands which bear great names like the Greenidge and Haynes Stand, and the Hall and Griffith Stand in the middle of which an aged but legendary Wesley Hall gives Kohli a warm handshake.

This is the venue which, way back in 2007, held a surreal 50 over World Cup Final between Sri Lanka and Australia with all things going wrong – the skies darkening unexpectedly much before nightfall, the floodlights not working, the batters swinging their bats in the dark as a stunned public saw the hurtle with the match being decided on Duckworth and Lewis rain system. Of course, Australia won by 53 runs in the bargain and one Mr Adam Gilchrist revolutionised the game, albeit in an earlier match on another Caribbean ground.

The Caribbean is also the place where an abject India returned home after the group stage with a newbie like Bangladesh chasing a score of 191 set up by India at Port of Spain, Trinidad.

As India walks into the hallowed ground sitting pretty in a tony Bajan corner, where a usually green splattered surface has been browned completely by the groundsmen, the 2007 team’s skipper Rahul Dravid and the head coach now, prefer to live in the present along with the squad that looks ahead not behind.

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