The day it all started

Date: 18th April, 2008,Saturday 6:30 pm. That was the official time for the start of first ever IPL opening ceremony. As soon as the cricinfo commentator wrote “Hello and welcome to the first .......” , I was shouting “Abe samir(alias mardi,alias chotu),IPL start hone wala hain chalo chalo common room” while running towards the stairs of our wing. I got my favourite seat in the common room as there were hardly 4 guys in that room. Then it all started.

Chinnaswamy stadium was already full before even the toss happened. The match was scheduled at 8 pm and already the chinnaswamy was full by 7pm.Wow.Then there was some bollywood music by shankar’s team and dances by some bollywood stars then came as Shastri invited Rahul Dravid captain of Bangalore Royal challengers and Sourav Ganguly captain of Kolkata Night Riders onto the stage. Crowd response was amazing. Shastri’s voice was hardly heard. Then came all other captains on to the stage and there were some speeches and etc. In all these speeches the one which was notable was “A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.” From Lalit Modi which was actually quoted by Nehru in 1947. No comments here.

Now everybody was gone off the stage and some gymnastics were going which I was not at all interested in. Then I saw around to notice that the common room where our TV is present is already full. Atleast 20 ppl were standing. The IPL fever has just started in KGP,I thought. Time was 7 30 pm, our dinner time and as usual I didn’t have my dinner. I got an egg puff and a frappe from Nescafe which was just outside our common room. By the time I came back somebody occupied my seat and I had to stand till the end of first innings.

Then toss happened Knight Riders batted first. By the way I was cheering for Royal challengers because 1.I am a big fan of Rahul Dravid 2. I strongly believe that whoever does well in test cricket can easily adapt to any situation. Everybody was saying royal challengers are fielding a test team. There was only me who was cheering for them because KGP is in Bengal.

In Kingfisher airlines colour jersey the royal challengers entered the field and then came Knight Rider’s batsmen in golden and black jersey. I was expecting early wickets as Praveen kumar started bowling because batsmen are just gonna try to hit every ball out of the ground. After the first over by Praveen kumar which yielded only 1 run, I clapped for him and everyone was staring at me. Wow, bongs were really serious about their team. But when McCullum hit 18 runs of the second over by zaheer khan , all my expectations were gone. Man, McCullum was hitting the ball like a tennis ball. I forgot whom I was cheering; I was just cheering “Go McCullum Go”. Finally Knight Riders won by more than 100 runs I guess. I was disappointed that there was no real contest there but I thoroughly enjoyed the batting by McCullum who scored century.

And the day it all started finally ended when I started my bittorrent client to download the highlights of the match and gone to sleep thinking that “If Knight Riders can get such a big score then what will happen when deccan chargers (the team which I thought would take the trophy) batsmen take the field which boasts of Afridi, Gibbs, Symonds, Gilchrist etc in their ranks”.

Passion - A start

My dad is a big fan of cricket. He used to take leaves to watch important matches. I don’t know whether this passion is inherited from my father or may be my own but I too bunked many classes to watch even test matches. I was getting up at 5 AM in the morning to watch India playing in Australia. I used to watch till 4 am in the morning when India was playing in WestIndies. People used to say “man, this guy is a freak”. I used to think maybe I was a freak but I was not the only one. I was always accompanied by at least five other friends in my IIT hostel. Those were my IIT days where I hardly had 3 hrs classes per day so that was ok. What about now? I am working in a Software Company and have to reach the office by 10:30 but still I was getting up at 3 30 am in the morning to watch India creating history in Newzealand. Man, I am a freak. Yes you heard right I am a crazy fan of cricket but then you find samples like me in India innumerably. India has really all the diversities here whichever you can think of cultures, religions, caste , white, black , coloured you name it. While writing this I recall a caption which I studied in my social studies class “anekatha mein yekatha” meaning “Unity in Diversity”. Yes this caption really suits here because even though India has so many diversities all have this passion about cricket. Yes, It is true Cricket is a religion here.

I want to tell you guys about an incident in my childhood. I was in my 6th standard I think and there was an ODI match going on between India and Pakistan Hero cup final. At that point of time I had no idea what a cover drive is and what is swing and what is off spin. I only knew 4 ,6 and wicket that’s all. It was sunday . For my dad it was a working day but as I said He is a freak like me sorry actually, I was a freak like him so he took leave and stayed home to watch. He was watching in the hall and I was studying in the bed room because I had my half yearly exams in 15 days (I was a studios guy then).I wanted to see that match badly. I requested my dad to let me watch the match. He said he will let me watch only Indian batting and that too only first 15 and last 10 overs of the match. You know I was quiet happy with that because all I wanted to see was just 4’s and 6’s.I always thank my dad to let me watch that match. I would never forget Kanitkar hitting a lofted 4 when India needed 3 runs of 2 balls while chasing 315.

My conclusion from this little incident of my own is that anyone who has only little knowledge about cricket really wants to see is 4’s 6’s and wickets thats all. They want the action but not the two experts in the commentary box arguing about a leg before wicket Or Rahul Dravid playing a perfect square cut Or Mc Grath testing the openers with a perfect line outside the off stump. They don’t want to waste a full day to cricket either, they just want to spend time for entertainment where their day to day work is not impacted. In India where there is an unbound love for cricket where cricket itself is a religion there comes IPL brainchild of Lalit Modi. A perfect match to what a non-hardcore cricket fan really wants. A twenty20 match at 8 pm which brings all the action highlights of cricket in 3 and ½ hrs time. You have your own city team to cheer. You have the cheer girls and bollywood music to entertain when nothing is going on onfield.
IPL was a big success it had to be, the way it was planned is amazing. Everybody knew it was going to be a big success and it was going to create history and indeed it created history.IPL is here to stay. I am happy that I am here when it all got started. I am going to tell my grand children that I was there following the first IPL when it happened proudly.

What about the IPL2? Is it going to bring the same success which brought IPL last year? Is it going to be the same in South Africa? Well, all the questions will be answered in the next few weeks. What my guts say is IPL2 going to be bigger success than IPL last year. Yes there will be some impact of not happening in India but all the games evolve with the experience So, I believe IPL will also evolve in IPL2 and will be a much bigger success than last year.