On 29 June 2024, India beat South Africa by 7 runs in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final in Barbados to win their first T20 world title in 17 years. Across India, in the early hours of the morning — it was 3 AM IST when the winning wicket fell — people celebrated in streets, on balconies, and in living rooms. Almost universally, they did so with chai.
This is not a coincidence. Cricket and chai are woven together in the fabric of Indian life in a way that goes far beyond mere scheduling convenience.
How It Started: The British Left Both
Cricket and tea arrived in India together, brought by the same colonial administration. The British East India Company planted the first commercial tea gardens in Assam in the 1830s and 1840s. The same period saw cricket spreading from the colonial enclaves of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras into Indian society — first adopted by the Parsi and princely communities, then embraced by everyone.
By the time of Indian independence in 1947, both cricket and chai had made the complete journey from colonial import to national identity. They were no longer British things. They were Indian things. The match tea interval — a break midway through the day's play during which players and umpires drink tea — is a direct inheritance from English cricketing tradition. In India, the players drink chai.
Stadium Chai Culture
Every major Indian cricket stadium has its own chai ecosystem.
At the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the concrete stairways are lined with vendors who have worked the same section for decades. The chai is carried in aluminium flasks, poured into small paper cups, and passed along rows of seats during drinks breaks. It is strong, very sweet, and slightly too hot — exactly right.
At Eden Gardens in Kolkata — the world's second-largest cricket stadium by capacity, holding around 66,000 — the tea stalls in the outer concourse are social institutions. Bengalis take their tea seriously and their cricket even more seriously. The combination of a high-stakes Test match and a mishti (sweet) and chai at Eden Gardens is considered by many as one of the essential Indian experiences.
At Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, the IT crowd that fills the IPL matches has brought newer coffee chains into the concourse, but the old-school tapri outside Gate 4 still outsells them during rain delays.
The IPL and Chai's Reinvention
The Indian Premier League, launched in 2008, changed the television habits of India more dramatically than almost any other event. Matches happen in the evening prime-time window — 7:30 PM start, ending around 11 PM. This created a new chai occasion: the match chai, brewed before the first ball and refilled during the innings break.
IPL watching parties — in apartments, on rooftop terraces, in tapris with a television propped on a shelf — invariably involve a large pot of chai and a high opinion of whichever team is being supported. IPL viewership in 2024 was estimated at over 500 million unique viewers across the tournament, according to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). That is a lot of simultaneous chai consumption.
Virat, Rohit, and the Chai Moment
The 2024 T20 World Cup — which India won under Rohit Sharma's captaincy, ending 17 years of ICC trophy drought — produced one of the most widely shared images in Indian cricket history: the team's impromptu celebration on the Barbados ground, Virat Kohli in tears, the cup lifted. Across India, fans matched the moment with their own — arms raised, chai cups in hand.
Virat Kohli has spoken in multiple interviews about his love of masala chai, particularly the roadside tapri chai that he still seeks out. Rohit Sharma grew up in Borivali, Mumbai — tapri country. These are not incidental details. They are part of how Indian cricket players remain connected to the culture that watches them.
The Tea Break as Meditation
In Test cricket, the tea interval — a 20-minute break taken after the second session of the day's play — is one of the few surviving rituals that genuinely slows down in an era of relentless pace. Players leave the field. The crowd mills around. The vendors do their best business of the day.
For a spectator at a Test match in India, the tea interval is a reset — time to stand, stretch, argue about the session's play, and drink something hot. The match will resume. But for 20 minutes, there is only chai and conversation.
This is what cricket and chai share beneath the sport and the flavour: they are both, at their best, about presence. Being fully where you are. Not checking your phone. Watching what is happening with your whole attention.
In India, cricket and chai are not two things. They are one experience that happens to have an innings break.