An Exciting finale

A truly sensational end to the first season of the IPL T20 season. Could not have expected more excitement. Few misses from chennai and few sixes for Rajasthan royals, taking the match to final ball was simply exciting. For the first time watched match through live streaming and a live cricket match after few months was like a feast to a person dying of hunger. I remained as the supporter of chennai till the last ball of the match and there is nothing to complain about. It was a close contest and Rajasthan snatched it away at the last moment. Anyway here are few things that are to be remembered about the first IPL.

Before start of the season, it was Deccan chargers whom i thought would produce some records and win all matches easily but they failed to fire till the end of the season. Bangalore Royal challengers were  little shaky and failed in all challenges. Mumbai a bit unlucky, and Delhi a lot lucky for a place in semifinal. Kings XI no issues. Knight riders made headlines at times.Rajasthan royals delivered together as a team. My home team, chennai were satisfactory, nothing to blame.

When expected players like Afridi, Gibbs, Ponting, Symonds shattered the expectations, youngs players like asnodkar, badrinath, yomahesh created some. Shaun marsh, Ross taylor, shane watson were outstanding.

Anyway it all ends here this year. IPL had lived upto the hype that was created. Inspite of incidents like Bhajji's slap, IPL deserves a clap just for the entertainment it has provided for the past six weeks. It had something to talk for the past two months.

Most important thing, it gave me an opportunity to see a cricket match live for the first time.

IPL T20

Yesterday i was there at the chinnaswami stadium to see the IPL T20 match between chennai super kings and Bangalore Royal Challengers as a supporter of the mighty super kings. This is the first national or international i witnessed from the ground. Inside the stadium it was sweating and the view was not that great as that of what you see in television. But those are the only negatives which will vanish when you take the fun factor into account. IPL T20 was a visual treat. Sixes, fours, missed catches, runouts, music and cheerleaders and all in four hours was too great.

We were there in the stadium at 6.00 and were able to see the players practising. Though most of the players were practising seriously Makhaya Ntini and Muralitharan responded to shouts of the fans. After a while the Washington Redskins, cheer leaders of Bangalore Royal challengers, lit up the atmosphere with their presence. They did attract a lot of attention of the crowd. The chennai cheer leaders preferred to stay away from the attention and walked silently to their places. We were also able to catch a glimpse of the Kollywood and Sandalwood heroine and Bangalore Royal challenger's brand ambassador "Kuthu Ramya" (as she is called  in kollywood). The crowd wave started and continued for a long time.

Once the match started it was pure fun. When Dale Steyn bowled the first over, he did reduce our hopes. The same happened when Hayden and Parthiv Patel returned to pavillion. Once Hussey and Dhoni joined and when the partnership started flourishing, it was fun. When Dhonis started bombarding the stands with his huge six, none of us were in the seat. Though we, the chennai super kings supporters were outnumbered by the Bangalore Royal challenger's supporters, we had more opportunities to celebrate and we used it fully. Sports brings unity, yeah it was true, soon the chennai supporters were united and responded to shouts and comments of different groups in the stand. Drums sivamani beats took us to TN.

The Bangalore Royal challengers started their batting in style, and looked formidable untill they started losing wickets. Till that the fun was with the Bangalore supporters, they were shouting "Jeetaegaa  Jeetaegaa, Bangalore Jeetaegaa". Once the wickets started falling it  was for us to enjoy. With Sap leading the group, the  chants continued  in the local language, which most of the people might not have understood.   To mention a few,

"Atho paaru lightu, Chennai na weightu"
"Gummathalakadi Gummavaa, Chennai na summava"
"Sala pula sala pula, gummthalaka" and the famour "O".

Throats dried up, Legs ached because of dancing but nobody was willing to let tiredness take away the opportunities of enjoyment and the celebration continued. When super kings won eventually we erupted in joy. It was Royal challengers match gifted by them to Chennai superkings. Anyway once the match ended, we  reached home safely in auto fully satisfied of viewing a fantastic match. Anyway that kindled a small desire in the corner of heart, should witness atleast one India-Pakistan match in Chennai.

Crying Babies

Street cricket was one of my favourite game a decade back. A truly interesting game with out slight respect for the rules . A flat stick and a plastic ball or a rubber one was enough. The way in which the game was played is the most interesting part. Balls were thrown at full speed to break the stumps or if possible the players leg. Whether catch is taken or not, the wicket is never given without arguments. Even the stumps are broken into two pieces batsmen refuse to leave the field hoping the umpire may do miracle. At times umpires help them also. Run outs and stumpings were the worst part of the game. Remember matches getting abondoned unable to reach a decision whether the player reached the crease before the ball or not. If there was no way out for a team to win, the last possible attempt was to put the blame on the opposite team player that he used a really really bad word during the game and would usually end in omeone running behind someone to thrash him. They were the crying babies. One thing about the crying babies is that they usually win the match.

The reason why i am talking about this is that i could see all these in the australia-india second test match. After seeing the second test between Australia and India i was convinced that there are crying babies in international cricket arena too ;) And to see that the world champions crying was really funny. Still clueless why Ponting men resorted to a new technique, may be to continue the winning streak. Indians are always a big PITA for the aussies. Whether they win or lose, they make sure that aussies record is broken. Good to see that Indians have done it once again.  Hats off to Indians.  If you have any doubts why i have posted this without after the whole issues has subsided, the reason is i do not want to miss the opportunity to belittle aussies at any chance.

World Cup Atlast :)

Finally found some time to blog. So many things to blog about but could not find the right time. Finally had to sneak into browsing center near my home to post about the topic that half of India is chanting now. The victory of the Men in Blue against their arch rivals. I did not get an opportunity to see the match as we did not have a TV at home and was looking at my system's monitor eagerly waiting for the scores to get updated. Finally had to call my friend who managed to settle in a hotel to hear the commentary. He did a fine job indeed in updating ball by ball status and also in describing  the

If i am right this is the first time India and Pak are meeting in final of a great event like the world cup. If it was some other team the fans here might have digested a defeat, i doubt whether it would be the same against Pak. Anyway the end result was great and Men in Blue continued the winning streak against Pak in both the world cup and the T20 World Cup. Hats off to them. I don't know how the Indian team handled the pressure during the final overs but we were at the edge of our seats when the final over was bowled. When the final wicket fell, crackers lit up the sky. The celebration continued late night.  Finally India has won the world cup.