Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
The IPL matches over the years have turned into a sort of annual carnival for cricket lovers in India. When it all began there were big talks about the auctions in which each IPL franchise bid for the players. The money paid to star overseas players like Adam Gilchrist used to make front page news at times as flyers.
The hot favorites for the first few IPL sessions were the Chennai Super Kings (CSK). When Rajasthan Royals under the stewardship of legendary Australian spinner Shane Warne won the tournament there was a lot of talk about how a small-town team can be made into a fighting outfit. Warne walked off with an accolade for that feat.
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The money pouring into IPL from various franchises and the performances of the teams were the lead point of discussion each season. There were also some interesting viewpoints voiced by locals especially when it came to the fortunes of Mumbai Indians. One young lady said, “I support Kolkota Knight Riders because I am a fan of Shah Rukh Khan.” There was a youth who said, he is against Mumbai Indians because he hates Reliance for whatever reasons. It is to be observed that unlike in the case of Ranji trophy or Duleep trophy the locals were unable to identify themselves with the teams representing their region as there were hardly any local players in the team.
However, the cheering the crowds gave to support their team at the stadium was tremendous and also got accentuated by cheerleader girls dancing for each boundary or sixer the batsman hit. An exceptional innings that can be recalled was the one played by Chris Gayle when he scored 175 in a T20 match for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. That was so firmly etched in the minds of players of opposing sides that when Chris Gayle got out cheaply when playing versus the Mumbai Indians, Harbhajan Singh did a Gangnam dance imitating Gayle’s act when he claimed a wicket.
There were also some memorable knocks including that of Yusuf Pathan who scored the fastest T20 century and overnight became a sensation in the Indian cricketing arena. Yusuf’s moment in the sun was however short-lived. The one valuable Test cap IPL threw up for India was Ravichandran Ashwin. He was a lethal spinner who used to triumph for India in many of the home matches India played with overseas teams.
There were also some traditional patterns. For example, Mumbai Indians will initially lose matches and later on continually perform well to step into the last four teams to play for the semi-finals. Similarly, Shah Rukh Khan’s KKR used to fare badly till the time came to fight and emerge as a resurgent side. However, there were times when fights between two IPL teams used to throw up unexpected results. KKR who were on a losing trail all along managed to upset Mumbai Indians before the penultimate IPL matches.
There were also some dark moments in the IPL fixtures when match fixing allegations came to the fore and a few players and sides were named and shamed in public. As times go by, the betting mafia was allowed to let the sleeping lions rest and now IPL is again the talk of the town.
