Nearly 8000 fans at Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium made sure the atmosphere is electric for Indian women's doubles semifinal clash. (Express Photo)“Pullela Pullela, Jolly good Jolly good”The chant rang around the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium as a crowd of 8,000 breathed as one living thing for more than 64 minutes, as Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand took the court against world No. 1 Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in the women’s doubles semi-final at the Badminton World Championships.The Indian pair fell short in three games, losing 21-18, 13-21, 8-21, but the crowd rose to appreciate the history-makers who had ended a 15-year wait for a medal in women’s doubles at the World Championships, and continued India’s unbroken streak of medals dating back to the 2011 World Championships.Every smash was cheered, every drop appreciated. Even the wildest defensive retrieval got the crowd’s heartbeat up, dictating its breathing to the cadence of the rally, the usual stadium noise rising and swelling with every shot like a single hymn. Spectators display India flags during the women’s doubles semi-final match between India’s Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand Pullela and China’s Sheng-Shu Liu and Ning Tan. (Reuters)In the first game, Treesa and Gayatri played fierce with their smashes and tender with their drops at the net, and the crowd answered with a “waah, waah” at the end of every rally, the way a mushaira answers a good line of verse.A DJ played Punjabi beats. A set of drums, stationed in the second tier, turned its drummer into Ringo Starr after every Treesa-Gayatri winner. Delhi, for a night, felt like the graduation party of India’s newest badminton stars. The Chinese remain the sport’s most dominant pairing, and the crowd, slowly realising just how high that bar sits, cheered India’s defiance of it all the harder.As the Chinese pulled ahead in the second game, the Indian crowd only got louder. Every time India dropped consecutive points, the noise would rise into a chant: “Let’s go India, let’s go.”Story continues below this adDown by eight points, a young fan piped up: “Seedha aath point ab le lo bas.” The particular joy of doubles is how freely fans in an arena feel entitled to yell out tactics, every one of them convinced, for a moment, that they’re Pullela Gopichand. It was the kind of affection Indonesian arenas like Istora are known for. Excited fans at IG Arena for BWF World Championship in New Delhi. (Express photo)A kid on the right side called out, “Didi jeet jao please.” A senior citizen nearby went analytical instead: “Smash ko thoda andar rakhna tha.”The Indian pair looked tired by the time the decider began, but the crowd still had its voice, cheering on, and appreciating the Chinese pair too, the way only a crowd that actually understands the sport can.Delhi has often been criticised for not showing up, for the India Open especially. Over these six days, it has done enough to answer that. The same stadium once mocked for monkey and pigeon droppings redeemed itself, brought alive by 8,000 hearts beating in the same rhythm.