From
today starts another extravaganza ! IPL has just begun with KKR bowling ~ Sunil Naraine back in action makes news !!!
...... rain played spoilsport in the
'City of Joy' as a dazzling Bollywood-style opening ceremony kick
started the 8th edition of
Indian Premier League (IPL) after a one and a half hour delay at the decked-up
Salt Lake stadium yesterday. IPL is all
glitz and lot of promotion !!
For a
purist, the game starts when the 2 Umpires takes their strides to the middle
but IPL is different – theatrics, glam and glitz – thy name; this session too has some trouble. ….
First at Chepauk, there will be empty stands (at least 3 of them) and
like 2013, no Lankan player in Chennai matches !
The 2015 season of
the Indian Premier League ( Pepsi IPL 2015 ) is the eighth season of the IPL.
Kolkata Knight Riders are the defending champions having won the title in the
2014 season. KKR play Mumbai Indians
today and a total of 60 T20 matches will
be held in the entire tournament. No matches will be held in Kolkata between
April 12 and April 25 due to Municipal Elections.
On
field, KKR is playing the West Indies mystery spinner Sunil Naraine, who was reported for suspect
action in CLT20 and went on to miss the recently-concluded World Cup; he has
since been given a clean chit by the BCCI after tests at Sri Ramachandra
Hospitals, Chennai.
KKR has won the trophy twice
(2012 and 2014) and Narine's effectiveness with a re-modelled
action is yet to be seen. In case you thought, T20 is just slambang - KKR is spinner’s haven – besides Naraine, there is Piyush Chawla,
Shakib al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, playing today …… (they had Senanayake
Mudiyanselage Sachithra Madhushanka Senanayake.. earlier) now have in their
ranks - Brad Hogg, chinaman bowler
Kuldeep Yadav, a rookie spinner KC
Cariappa has been bought for 2.4 crore. ~ and if that is not enough their site
lists two more : Aditya Garhwal (legbreak googly bowler !), Vaibhav Rawal
(legbreak googly bowler !)
IPL
is big fat wedding – grand, glamorous, glittering, noisy and garish. On field there are so many cameras (including
spider cam) catching not only the game,
but also movement of players, their reactions of team and its owners, of the
cheerleaders, official tune makers and also the spectators. Fans mostly are given flags and come in team
colours. There are so many support
staff, there is player’s dug-out, gym sessions, sponsors, bat signings, media,
shouting commentators on field, interview with players and many other non-game
related arrangements of late night parties and more.
The 2nd
game involves CSK at home ground Chennai after a year and this year too, there
is news of Sri Lankan players not figuring – does that include the Umpire too
? - it was not an issue as in the last
version, Chennai did not host any game !
reportedly, Angelo Mathews, the Sri Lankan captain, has not arrived with the Delhi Daredevils team here.
IPL has had its share of
controversies – an year before last, Shah Rukh Khan’s drunken brawl with Mumbai
Cricket Authority security guards at the Wankhede Stadium made many feel
sour. Gabriella Pasqualotto, a cheer
leader from South Africa, who became quite popular after writing about the dark
intentions of certain Cricketers and was later sent back home for her
revelations, exposed some cricketers in her blog. Aussie player Luke Pomersbach was involved in a molestation
case which the woman involved Zohal Hameed, settled outside. There was also the
sting operation in which five uncapped
players[Amit Yadav, Mohnish Mishra, Abhinav Bali, TP Sudhindra and Shalabh
Srivastava] were accused for fixing
matches during IPL season 5. None of
them were proven guilty though !!
To some regular
Cricket fans, it is no pleasure but plain pain to be inside the stadium – hot
days, made hotter by the lights – no facilities, one has to pass through make
shift barricades and rude volunteers, no decent rest rooms, water starved
toilets – nothing allowed inside including water bottles – one needs to buy
everything at exorbitant prices and once
the match is over, getting out also is regulated - reaching the road and finding means of
transportation would pose more trouble. Inside the stadiums loudspeakers would blare
songs of all languages and there would be cacophony.
Amidst the melee, thousands of seats in the
reconstructed galleries of M.A. Chidambaram Stadium are likely to remain vacant
this IPL season too. It is reported that
the Municipal permission is yet to be obtained and hence there is still ban on
using the stands !
Everything
else will be forgotten as fans would get enthralled by six hitting madness – it
is IPL and are going to whistle for CSK ?
My son continues his support for KKR for Ganguly played a few seasons
ago !!
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
8th Apr 2015.
