Monday, April 21, 2008

God Bless Mano-Ranjan and Their Family!!!

It is the baap, dada and pardada of all manoranjan and boy, it rocks... Yes, I'm talking about the IPL (check the ad here). With all the whoopla and hype and stars from bollywood and international cricket coming together it was meant to be. Still I had some niggling doubt. Will the players give their 110% as they give when they play for the country? Will the fans be that much passionate when their city plays against another? We know when Arsenal play United or Barca plays Real, the players give their best, and fans don't take it any less than a war, a prestige-war, but a war nonetheless...
Came and went April 18th and all my doubts have been put to rest. I'll start with the opening match. Bangalore plays Kolkata and being a bong in Bangalore, it was a lifetime opportunity. So me and my friends all geared up and reached the stadium at 6 P.M. dot. And it's already full!! So we pushed and shoved and squeezed ourselves into the steps. Not a bad view, but we couldn't see the screen from there. What to do… (Note to self: Next time you go to see a cricket match reach at least 2 hour early). 

Anyway the opening ceremony started. I won't bore you with the details. In one word, it was just great. The dancers, performers, acrobats, music and last but not the least the fireworks... It was simply awesome. 

So the firework ends, the game starts and it is fireworks again! This time it's on the pitch, fired by Brendon McCullum!! If you don't believe, ask Rahul Dravid and Co., if they weren't seeing stars... All in all I was enjoying it tremendously. After all I was routing for Kolkata, and McCullum just went on and on and on, like a one-man-army. He is special, no doubt about it. 158* in 73 balls is a rare innings even in T20 standards. I think he'll play some 4-5 matches in IPL and then he has to join his national team. Sigh...
Anyway, Kolkata innings was superb (at least for me), and it was time for the Challengers. In came Rahul Dravid and Wassim Jaffer. Well, you just can't chase 223 in 120 balls with this opening pair. And they didn't. Dravid in a very un-dravidian style tried to slog a inswing, almost-yorker-length delivery from Ishant Sharma in the 2nd over and as a result saw his leg stump flying. It all went downhill from that moment. Although I was happy with a Riders' win, I came to watch a cricket match, not a one sided (actually one manned) thrashing. It was almost pathetic and the crowd soon lost interest when the wickets started falling. More attention was paid to the cheer leaders (Vijay Mallya sure knows how to choose his babes). Even they got bored very soon as no boundary was coming. Heck, the batsmen couldn't even connect and when they did, it was nick to the slips. That too, in bowling of Agarkar, the worst purchase of SRK I must say (hopefully he won't be in playing eleven when Umar Gul joins the team). Whatever, after 8 wickets down, my friends (all of them proud and disappointed Kannadigas) decided to leave to avoid the end-rush and I followed suit (I am completely dependent on them for transport).

All in all a spectacular opening act somewhat marred by absolutely-non-competitive game. Still it was great. We shouted, danced (from hip-hop to bhangra), sang, boo-ed (BCCI president, who else), chanted (Sachin's name when he came to sign that pledge or whatever), ogled (you-know-what), passed silly wisecracks and was home by 12-12:30. Not bad for a Friday evening I guess. 

Yes, IPL is here to stay. Three cheers for IPL…
Latest results: On Saturday, Chennai Super Kings defeated everyone-and-his-uncle's favorite Kings XI Punjab, thanks to Mr. Cricket. On Sunday, Riders won a thrilling low-scoring game on a very un-T20 pitch against another favorite Deccan Chargers, this time thanks to Mr. Cricket's younger bro. And, to the relief of all my friends and neighbor, Challengers won against Mumbai, in another thrilling but not-low-scoring (166 is not that high scoring in T20 standards), this time thanks to Kallis and Boucher. Surely inclusion of Chanderpaul has helped a lot (but I still think Dravid is not the right person to open the innings). Today it is the minnow Rajasthan Royals winning against Punjab. Tough luck Ms. Zinta, looks like having Yuvi and Lee is not enough. Anyway, the tournament has just started and it will definitely get better as it progresses with more and more unexpected results. And that is T20 all about. Bring it on…

4 comments:

  1. how do u say: "disappointed Kannadigas"?, its biased i feel, lots were disappointed, over all its good at last... in begining of blog im still waiting for something to happen (could be my lack of patience too :))...

    anyway carry on blogging fever... :)

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  2. Well, I dint mean only kannadigas were disappointed... Almost all including Riders' supporters felt the same. I just described the state of my friends. All of them are from here and they were very disappointed (a lot more than me, cause I at least had something to cheer about). That's all...

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  3. hey gr8 commentry of d first match....but maccullum never showed d fireworks again...n m still waitin 4 sum rider 2 do sumthin....on every match v d whole family sit wid a lot of hopes n till d last ball v think der will b a miracle....but no...lets c how far rawalpindi express succeeds...

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  4. Thanks for your comment. Well same here about the Riders... Just hope they will bounce back...

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