This post is a brief account of my experience as a spectator in the IPL match between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Delhi Daredevils held on 19th May 2008 at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. 
Background: I had never been to any cricket stadium to watch a live match. But Sandeep’s josh transformed me to go for one, that too for the wholesome entertaining IPL match(not exciting enough though, as our home team Bangalore Royal Challengers was on a loosing streak). But the tickets had been booked by Sandeep long back when he was on a business trip to Paris and when in Bangalore you have no choice but to go for the match in which one of the teams is always Bangalore and you may expect less fireworks from them. Sandeep had bought 2 tickets for the Bangalore v/s Delhi match on May 19th but his colleagues had also booked ticket for him for the same match. Now, he had an extra ticket. He asked me whether any of my friends were interested to join. That’s when I called Deviprasad, a cricket freak. He instantly accepted the invitation and we had a big team now around 10 people to watch the match. But it was only when Sandeep saw the tickets booked by his colleagues, he realized that our stands were different. So, I and Devi headed for our stand which was McDowells Best View(Stand A).
Initial Proceedings: I had left office early to reach Chinnaswamy stadium as you never know with Bangalore traffic. Though Devi had told he would be around 6 PM and me much earlier, he was the first to reach the place. With rain pouring heavily and Sandeep and friends still on their way, we decided to go inside the stadium. I was skeptical whether we would have a game at all with all those rains and if it all it stopped raining whether we will have a full match. Routine security checks were in place and one of the security personnel wondered about the rechargeable batteries I had carried in my bag. I told it was for the camera and he seemed convinced. Well, we were now inside the stadium with early birds already occupying strategic positions i.e seats!
Shaan Show and the Laser Show: Fortunately, rain had stopped around 6 and that was precisely the time when Bollywood singing sensation Shaan’s programme will start. Shankar Prasad, well known face of the Bengaluru Doordarshana Kendra was the host of the show. He began with his impeccable voice addressing the crowd both in English and Kannada, “Ladies and gentlemen”, “Mahileyere mattu Mahaneeyare” respectively and told Shaan will be entertaining us with bollywood numbers and some Kannada songs too. Shaan dressed in white coat and white pants entered the stage SRK style (Don theme), with the thunderous applause and began his bollywood numbers with ‘Mai Hun Don’. ‘Chand Sifarish’, ‘Do you want a partner’, ‘Jab se tera naina’, ‘Dekho Dekho Kya Yeh Pedh hai’ followed. He also sang one Kannada song – ‘Eno Onthara Ee Preethiyu Ee Reethiyu Shuruvaada Aa Nanthara’ from ‘Hudugaata’. He ended his show with his ever green album melody ‘Tanha Dil’ wishing the home team all the best, telling repeatedly that he would be lucky for the team but that was not to be. After Shaan’s show, Laser Show followed. Lasers with background score filled the entire stadium with exclamations from the audience. It was really awesome; have look at the videos below.
Background: I had never been to any cricket stadium to watch a live match. But Sandeep’s josh transformed me to go for one, that too for the wholesome entertaining IPL match(not exciting enough though, as our home team Bangalore Royal Challengers was on a loosing streak). But the tickets had been booked by Sandeep long back when he was on a business trip to Paris and when in Bangalore you have no choice but to go for the match in which one of the teams is always Bangalore and you may expect less fireworks from them. Sandeep had bought 2 tickets for the Bangalore v/s Delhi match on May 19th but his colleagues had also booked ticket for him for the same match. Now, he had an extra ticket. He asked me whether any of my friends were interested to join. That’s when I called Deviprasad, a cricket freak. He instantly accepted the invitation and we had a big team now around 10 people to watch the match. But it was only when Sandeep saw the tickets booked by his colleagues, he realized that our stands were different. So, I and Devi headed for our stand which was McDowells Best View(Stand A).Initial Proceedings: I had left office early to reach Chinnaswamy stadium as you never know with Bangalore traffic. Though Devi had told he would be around 6 PM and me much earlier, he was the first to reach the place. With rain pouring heavily and Sandeep and friends still on their way, we decided to go inside the stadium. I was skeptical whether we would have a game at all with all those rains and if it all it stopped raining whether we will have a full match. Routine security checks were in place and one of the security personnel wondered about the rechargeable batteries I had carried in my bag. I told it was for the camera and he seemed convinced. Well, we were now inside the stadium with early birds already occupying strategic positions i.e seats!
Shaan Performing at KSCA
Laser Show
Toss and the Star Entry: Stadium does look big when you watch in TV but when you were in middle of the action here, it seems a small place and Devi had the prospects of hitting sixes off any bowler, given a chance comparing the ground to the one he played in his school days in Hebri! We really missed the binoculars as without them you would be waiting for the giant screen replays to watch what exactly happened in the previous delivery. Well at around 7 30, Sunil Gavaskar made his entry to the ground with 2 captains – Dravid and Sehwag. Sehwag called it right. When asked about the match Dravid fancied his team’s chances of spoiling somebody’s party as his team was almost out of the tournament. Soon after the toss was over and match was about to begin, Kannada actors Upendra and Ramya were up on stage. Ramya began with her somewhat foreign accent Kannada saying ‘Namaskaara Bengaluru ‘ and Upendra greeting which he followed up with his own style dialogue ‘Fouru Sixu Ok, Kuttodu Yaake!’ indicating how Bangalore team was adapted to defending while batting rather than hit the ball t20 style and then they jogged around the ground saying ‘Cheers to Live’, making the crowd stand up and take notice of their presence.
Cheerleaders: Toss time also marked the entry of much debated cheerleaders to the stadium. They first performed in the middle of the ground, then jogging round the ground cheering the audience and finally to settle down at the 3 podiums destined for them. Needless to say all these events were received with high volume cheers for the crowd gathered. Cameras clicked, videos shot and the attention turned to one side of the ground. Cheerleaders used to dance for English, Hindi, Kannada songs whenever the home team hit 4’s and 6’s or took wickets. But they were left with plenty of spare time without work as the home team hit boundaries in patches and took only half of the Delhi team out.
Match and the Audience: Not terribly disappointed by the home team’s performances in earlier games, crowd cheered the team to lift their game up. Posters, Banners filled the crowd space but only that cameramen were not interested in any of these. Posters created by me like – ‘Put the Bang back ‘Bang’alore’, ‘Dravid V R With U’, ‘Don’t Mis-bah-L’, ‘Go 4 Hit Swamy’(for Srivatsa Goswamy, the debutant), ‘White Wash Delhi’(for Cameroon White) remained visible to the minority of McDowells’ Best View(Stand A) people! Also, these posters were of not much use after some time as Dravid, Goswamy, White were on their way to pavilion after I prepared these posters, with the exception of Mis-bah and Goswamy(who had a good outing on that day). Well, cameraman was more interested and focused on the airhostesses who had landed upon the KSCA ground on that day!
The Live Action: There are no live commentaries in the stadium; how can it be, with the audience noise level crossing several decibels. 2 giant screens provided us the status of the match as we were interested in the stats occasionally. But the lack of hard hitters in Dravid’s team made the match less T20. Misbah’s last over fireworks to produce 24 runs was a treat to watch. Anyway, crowd enthusiasm made up for this and evey four and six was cheered whole heartedly by the audience and being among this bunch gives yourself a different kind of experience altogether.
Like waiting for the third umpires decision and after his verdict the cheer; you have to be in the crowd to experience that. Well, nowadays they don’t show action replays to get our own versions of verdicts, thus avoiding controversies. First half of the match was Ok. Though Bangalore kept loosing wickets, 19 year old wicket keeper Srivatsa Goswamy provided complete entertainment, who finally perished trying to go over the top. But then Misbah was there to play his best IPL innings so far. On the way he also did a Inzamam-ul-Haq when he got involved in 2 of the runouts. 2nd part of the match was interesting only to the Delhi crowd as Sehwag and Gambhir hit boundaries after boundaries most of the times never bothering to run. But then Delhi also had their anxious moments; once the openers were out they lost 3 quick wickets courtesy Kumble and Steyn making the crowd interested in the match. But soon enthusiasm died as Delhi roped home comfortably winning the match by 5 wickets. In the meantime in the 2nd half, when match was dull, somebody from the crowd in McDowells Best View(Stand C), the stand where Sandeep was seated, started dancing and all the attention turned there! After the match was over, we did not wait for the presentation ceremony to get over and were on our way back home at around 11 30 PM, discussing had it not been a huge first wicket partnership for Delhi, we would have possibly won it!
Regards
Raveesh
Cheerleaders: Toss time also marked the entry of much debated cheerleaders to the stadium. They first performed in the middle of the ground, then jogging round the ground cheering the audience and finally to settle down at the 3 podiums destined for them. Needless to say all these events were received with high volume cheers for the crowd gathered. Cameras clicked, videos shot and the attention turned to one side of the ground. Cheerleaders used to dance for English, Hindi, Kannada songs whenever the home team hit 4’s and 6’s or took wickets. But they were left with plenty of spare time without work as the home team hit boundaries in patches and took only half of the Delhi team out.
Match and the Audience: Not terribly disappointed by the home team’s performances in earlier games, crowd cheered the team to lift their game up. Posters, Banners filled the crowd space but only that cameramen were not interested in any of these. Posters created by me like – ‘Put the Bang back ‘Bang’alore’, ‘Dravid V R With U’, ‘Don’t Mis-bah-L’, ‘Go 4 Hit Swamy’(for Srivatsa Goswamy, the debutant), ‘White Wash Delhi’(for Cameroon White) remained visible to the minority of McDowells’ Best View(Stand A) people! Also, these posters were of not much use after some time as Dravid, Goswamy, White were on their way to pavilion after I prepared these posters, with the exception of Mis-bah and Goswamy(who had a good outing on that day). Well, cameraman was more interested and focused on the airhostesses who had landed upon the KSCA ground on that day!
The Live Action: There are no live commentaries in the stadium; how can it be, with the audience noise level crossing several decibels. 2 giant screens provided us the status of the match as we were interested in the stats occasionally. But the lack of hard hitters in Dravid’s team made the match less T20. Misbah’s last over fireworks to produce 24 runs was a treat to watch. Anyway, crowd enthusiasm made up for this and evey four and six was cheered whole heartedly by the audience and being among this bunch gives yourself a different kind of experience altogether.
Kumble In Action
Regards
Raveesh
Good report of match man!! Seems u had lot of fun of having watching live match.
ReplyDeleteI was in delima watching this match which team to support, delhi(which is ma birth place) n bangalore is place that earns me bread-butter...
Good that my delhi won!! and is in semi's now :)
Awesome coverage Raveesh, with all those videos and pics!
ReplyDeleteOn another note, IMHO, dividing the article with small sections might slightly break the continuity of reading (or may be it's just me).
nice vivid narration. it was amusing to read.
ReplyDeletegood to that this(a IPL match) happened to be your first match in a cricket stadium. you had so many things to cherish, it was not the case before IPL era !
Hi Jats, Shridhar, Shande.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments.
@Shridhar,
I thought though I had divided the article into sections, there was continuity for most of the time. I I will try to see, how best I can accomplish both: breaking into sections and maintaining continuity!
btw I liked the idea of splitting in sections, it helps u skip particular section if not intrested in reading, and can always go back reading... Even if you plan to read full, in a long article you dont feel lost due to sections.
ReplyDelete- Jatin
Hi Jatin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments. Yes, I had got feedback from my readers like some of my write ups being lengthy. So, I thought of splitting it into different sections to accomodate both the required content and the option for the readers to choose what they want to read. Individual opinions vary regarding this.
Regards
Raveesh