With the World Cup returning to the subcontinent after 15 years and the two arch-rivals making the semifinal, the excitement was palpable. Nehra recalled how all of Chandigarh’s five-star hotels were booked and fans flocked to the city from all over the world, even without the match tickets.

The former India fast bowler was, however, lucky to have gotten his hands on tickets for his friends and family, courtesy of Afridi and Akhtar.

“Two-three days before that match, nobody knew that India and Pakistan would meet in the semifinals,” Nehra recalled. “Everything happened very quickly, in 72 hours, everyone came to know that Pakistan is facing India in World Cup semifinals. And I have not seen anything like that. There were not too many five-star hotels in Chandigarh, there was one Mount View hotel and teams were staying in Taj. And I had seen people coming from America or England, you just name it, and they didn’t have tickets.

“With the Pakistan delegation coming and a lot of tourists, who were staying in the Mount View hotel, left their rooms to go out and when they come back in the evening, their luggage was packed and kept outside their rooms and the hotel management told them that you have been checked out of the hotel, the money has been transferred back to your account … because the whole hotel has been taken by Mr [Yousaf Raza] Gillani (then Pakistan prime minister) and his team. I still remember India selector at the time, Kris Srikkanth, entering the Taj hotel in Chandigarh and there were no rooms for him.

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“Great game for India, pressure game, electric atmosphere as always but the amazing thing was that people were standing outside the hotel and they didn’t even have tickets. I was the lucky one, to be very honest, because I got a few extra tickets from the Pakistan camp. I told Shahid Afridi that I need two tickets, sort it out. Then I got two tickets from him and two tickets from Shoaib Akhtar. Waqar Younis was the coach, so maybe, out of the 30 players, I had the most number of tickets.”

In the semifinal, which turned out to be Nehra’s last ever ODI, he returned figures of 2-33, helping India register a 29-run win and progress to the final, where they famously beat Sri Lanka for their first World Cup triumph in 28 years.