The Swami Army, which is India's version of England's Barmy Army, will be out in full force at the MCG for the Australia-India Test series opener on Boxing Day and have set their sights on Ricky Ponting.
The 1400 or so members of the Swami Army will swamp Melbourne in the coming days in support of Sachin Tendulkar, and the rest of the Indian Test cricket team.
Although the group was formed seven years ago, it has only been this year that it has become fully established, creating a website, uniform, and calling on the thousands of Indian expats across Australia and the world to support their former home team.
One of the group's founders, Sumit Grover, said the main aim was to attract more cricket tragics to Test matches, having a bit of fun along the way.
"As a Test cricket fan I get a little disappointed when we don't see sell-out matches. We hope to change that a bit," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted him, as saying.
The group has already succeeding in its goal, having sold out a 1400-seat section of the MCG.
One of the chants will be an ode to Tendulkar, sung to the tune of Waltzing Matilda, to spur on the champion batsman to make his 100th international century.
"He should score his 100th century sometime during the series. But we are hoping he can make it on Boxing Day. It will be a great start to the series," Grover said.
Grover said the Swamis were determined to match the Australians when it comes to good-spirited heckling.
"The Barmy Army is the benchmark of any sporting group in the world. But there are 1.2 billion of us, so we should have no trouble getting the numbers and making a bit of noise," he said.
News source by:- http://cricket.yahoo.com/news/
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