It seems only yesterday that Team India led the entire country on a roller-coaster journey of strong emotions as they soared the heights of cricketing excellence in the World Cup before coming up against a vastly superior Australian team who sent them packing. As a nation full of cricket fans started to digest this, some coped well while others lashed out predictably – at TV sets, WAGs and at some of the stars themselves.
The horrors of an Australian summer spent in numbing defeats followed by the upswing of fortunes culminating in the shattering semifinal loss at the World Cup should have left the average Indian cricket fan totally spent and gasping for breath. You would think: let’s give these cricketers a break – let them take a beach holiday, get married, play golf or go bungee jumping. A die-hard sports fan would prefer a holiday from cricket on TV for a few weeks and start following the other Indians fighting for their country in hockey or golf, chess or badminton.
The fun starts now
But the Indian cricket mandarins have other ideas. Before you can finish counting the celebrities who landed up for Suresh Raina’s wedding reception, this big and monstrous tyohaar is well and truly upon us. But before you start cursing fluently and proceed to dry clean the next heap of team jerseys, be mindful that the next 45 days are definitely not about cricket. At least, not just cricket.
The IPL is like Vicks Vaporub on an evening when you have come home sniffling to your Mommy after getting wet in unseasonal rains. Every match has Indians and foreign recruits on either side batting or bowling their hearts out. There is no sense of discontent after the match is over in roughly 3.5 hours – you might even have time for a late night snack before you retire for the evening.
A lucky few might still feel a few tugs on their heartstrings if they are Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians or Kolkata Knight Riders fans, but for the vast majority of Indians it is a smooth balm every day irrespective of who wins. As you wake up next morning, your mind will be refreshed and filled with a strange aftertaste of euphoria as you painstakingly try and remember who won the man of the match last night. If you live in Pune, Raipur, Vizag or Ahmedabad your joy is tenfold – as the IPL matches give you a rare opportunity to enjoy a Manmohan Desai pot-boiler sitting at the ground cheering loudly at cricket’s glam avatar, prepared fresh for you.
Starry, starry knights
The IPL is like that dog-eared copy of Stardust you find in your train compartment on a long train journey after you forgot to buy magazines at the platform half an hour earlier. Celebrity team owners swish in and swish out of matches every day, local film and TV personalities are suddenly seen beaming from ear to ear as they wave team flags furiously, and gossip and rumours abound over who will be seen next and where.
This is also an opportunity for celebs to turn human and show their sweaty, back-thumping, team-hugging, furrowed brows and glee filled side to their vast and adoring fans. As the sixes and fours give way to the tremendous display of fireworks at the end of every match, you still hang on to the TV sets, not to listen to the post-match dissection but to wait and see if Bollywood comes down to the cricket pitch to play a few balls.
One more chance
The IPL is like a HBO miniseries which has been renewed for multiple seasons. Players left out of Team India due to poor form, lack of big daddy support or even old age look at this spectacle with renewed interest. After all, it takes only one performance over 20 overs of batting or 4 overs of bowling to get the crowd behind your back.
As you race around the boundary waving at your new fans and marvelling at your bloody good luck, the dark days of Ranji boredom and Irani prisons fade away magically. The few strands of cricketing grays get a magical makeover of eternal youth. Emotions ride rough shod over reality as every minute on the field turns you into a potential hero. From Yuvraj to Harbhajan to Yusuf to Irfan – they are all praying for that one big moment in the evening lights. And not to forget the newbies either – for a mystery spinner or a swing sensation or a master blaster, the IPL remains a golden ticket to cricketing super stardom.
But with all good things, there are strong pulls from the dark side. Reputations made over many years of hard work can go for a sudden toss as batsmen falter and bowlers get routinely smashed to smithereens. A catch dropped at a key moment or a run-out missed can send any player to cricketing oblivion, where survival becomes a daily struggle. This is why the Dhonis and Rainas and Kohlis will push their tired limbs to run with the teams every match day. Because The Circus Maximus can be very unforgiving!
And now for the actual cricket
Believe it or not, though, the IPL is about cricket as well. Tactics, innovative shot-making, mystery bowlers and hard-hitting batsmen. Unplayable yorkers and soaring sixes. 200 plus scores which get chased down methodically in nail-biting finishes. Shameful catch drops and amazing run outs. Great coaching and dazzling mentorship from some of the game’s greats like Rhodes, Ponting, Pollock, Fleming, Kallis and others.
But at the end of the day, when the dust settles and you have a winner and a loser, no one will leave the ground disappointed. Except maybe some of the players who might have undergone a mauling. But they too will live to fight another day. And that is the true spirit of IPL – happiness and cheer all the way through.
Forget your daily soap. Your 9 pm dose of daily news. Here comes India’s biggest festival now for quite some time – with natak, emoshun, ataychaar and mahasangram – guaranteed every day. Welcome to the Indian Premier League.
Rathindra Basu lives, breathes, sleeps sports and is forever waiting for the next Indian sporting triumph. Since this usually takes much time and infinite patience he also listens to music, reads voraciously and eats almost anything that moves!
The horrors of an Australian summer spent in numbing defeats followed by the upswing of fortunes culminating in the shattering semifinal loss at the World Cup should have left the average Indian cricket fan totally spent and gasping for breath. You would think: let’s give these cricketers a break – let them take a beach holiday, get married, play golf or go bungee jumping. A die-hard sports fan would prefer a holiday from cricket on TV for a few weeks and start following the other Indians fighting for their country in hockey or golf, chess or badminton.
The fun starts now
But the Indian cricket mandarins have other ideas. Before you can finish counting the celebrities who landed up for Suresh Raina’s wedding reception, this big and monstrous tyohaar is well and truly upon us. But before you start cursing fluently and proceed to dry clean the next heap of team jerseys, be mindful that the next 45 days are definitely not about cricket. At least, not just cricket.
The IPL is like Vicks Vaporub on an evening when you have come home sniffling to your Mommy after getting wet in unseasonal rains. Every match has Indians and foreign recruits on either side batting or bowling their hearts out. There is no sense of discontent after the match is over in roughly 3.5 hours – you might even have time for a late night snack before you retire for the evening.
A lucky few might still feel a few tugs on their heartstrings if they are Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians or Kolkata Knight Riders fans, but for the vast majority of Indians it is a smooth balm every day irrespective of who wins. As you wake up next morning, your mind will be refreshed and filled with a strange aftertaste of euphoria as you painstakingly try and remember who won the man of the match last night. If you live in Pune, Raipur, Vizag or Ahmedabad your joy is tenfold – as the IPL matches give you a rare opportunity to enjoy a Manmohan Desai pot-boiler sitting at the ground cheering loudly at cricket’s glam avatar, prepared fresh for you.
Starry, starry knights
The IPL is like that dog-eared copy of Stardust you find in your train compartment on a long train journey after you forgot to buy magazines at the platform half an hour earlier. Celebrity team owners swish in and swish out of matches every day, local film and TV personalities are suddenly seen beaming from ear to ear as they wave team flags furiously, and gossip and rumours abound over who will be seen next and where.
This is also an opportunity for celebs to turn human and show their sweaty, back-thumping, team-hugging, furrowed brows and glee filled side to their vast and adoring fans. As the sixes and fours give way to the tremendous display of fireworks at the end of every match, you still hang on to the TV sets, not to listen to the post-match dissection but to wait and see if Bollywood comes down to the cricket pitch to play a few balls.
One more chance
The IPL is like a HBO miniseries which has been renewed for multiple seasons. Players left out of Team India due to poor form, lack of big daddy support or even old age look at this spectacle with renewed interest. After all, it takes only one performance over 20 overs of batting or 4 overs of bowling to get the crowd behind your back.
As you race around the boundary waving at your new fans and marvelling at your bloody good luck, the dark days of Ranji boredom and Irani prisons fade away magically. The few strands of cricketing grays get a magical makeover of eternal youth. Emotions ride rough shod over reality as every minute on the field turns you into a potential hero. From Yuvraj to Harbhajan to Yusuf to Irfan – they are all praying for that one big moment in the evening lights. And not to forget the newbies either – for a mystery spinner or a swing sensation or a master blaster, the IPL remains a golden ticket to cricketing super stardom.
But with all good things, there are strong pulls from the dark side. Reputations made over many years of hard work can go for a sudden toss as batsmen falter and bowlers get routinely smashed to smithereens. A catch dropped at a key moment or a run-out missed can send any player to cricketing oblivion, where survival becomes a daily struggle. This is why the Dhonis and Rainas and Kohlis will push their tired limbs to run with the teams every match day. Because The Circus Maximus can be very unforgiving!
And now for the actual cricket
Believe it or not, though, the IPL is about cricket as well. Tactics, innovative shot-making, mystery bowlers and hard-hitting batsmen. Unplayable yorkers and soaring sixes. 200 plus scores which get chased down methodically in nail-biting finishes. Shameful catch drops and amazing run outs. Great coaching and dazzling mentorship from some of the game’s greats like Rhodes, Ponting, Pollock, Fleming, Kallis and others.
But at the end of the day, when the dust settles and you have a winner and a loser, no one will leave the ground disappointed. Except maybe some of the players who might have undergone a mauling. But they too will live to fight another day. And that is the true spirit of IPL – happiness and cheer all the way through.
Forget your daily soap. Your 9 pm dose of daily news. Here comes India’s biggest festival now for quite some time – with natak, emoshun, ataychaar and mahasangram – guaranteed every day. Welcome to the Indian Premier League.
Rathindra Basu lives, breathes, sleeps sports and is forever waiting for the next Indian sporting triumph. Since this usually takes much time and infinite patience he also listens to music, reads voraciously and eats almost anything that moves!
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