Three Charming Girls and a Cricket Match

2008 April 26

The whole nation had been caught with the IPL fever, so was I. As I was a great admirer of Sourav Chandidas Ganguly, thought of sticking with Kolkata Knight Riders (hereafter, noted as KKR). I checked the schedule completely and as it’s a home-away system, the only match of KKR in Chennai was against CSK on 26th April 2008. Thank Almighty, that’s a Saturday. So can watch the match and no need of taking a leave….!

The next thing is to get a good company to go for the match. I started the hunt one week back and since the tickets were priced high and since it was month-end, couldn’t get any guys. So as usual, I presented the topic to those four gorgeous girls whom I know from my college days. Three of them agreed and the fourth couldn’t as she was leaving to her hometown. I wanted to take Rs.1000 tickets, but I remained quiet. Instead explained them that the fares are from 200 to 5000 and which one they preferred. They agreed to buy tickets for ‘A’ stand where per seat cost 1K. I was relieved, coz I would have cancelled my plan if they opted anything higher than that. 

Ticket

So finally we got the tickets and all four were very excited as none of us have seen a live match from stadium before that. The biggest blunder that happened in the whole excitement was that we forgot the heat of Chennai. The match was at 4pm and we had occupied the seats before 3pm. We didn’t carry a cap or an umbrella and started drenching in sweat. But four of us were busy watching the warm-up sessions. We were seated just behind the fence of midwicket/third man region and could clearly have a view. The first big chap we got was Stephen Fleming, as he ran some full rounds along the fence. We were carefully watching the guys in the ground and one of us saw a giant and cried out, “Hayden……!”

The two captains walked out for toss and Dada won the toss, and asked Dhoni and his side to field first. The team members list was flashing in the giant screen.

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Matthew Hayden, 2 Parthiv Patel, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Michael Hussey, 5 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 6 Jacob Oram, 7 S Badrinath, 8 Joginder Sharma, 9 P Amarnath, 10 Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 MS Gony.

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Brendon McCullum, 2 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 David Hussey, 5 Mohammad Hafiz, 6 Laxmi Ratan Shukla, 7 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Murali Kartik, 10 Ashok Dinda, 11 Ishant Sharma.

Ganguly opened the innings with McCullum. The bowling was opened by Jacob Oram.
The first over was completed and KKR had scored about 8 runs.

“Hey, Look at that. What the hell is happening?” One of the Charlie’s Angels screamed. “What happened?” I was a bit surprised. “See they have changed the ends. They are playing in the wrong ends.”

Now that was a shock for me. Since it was the end of the over, the end will be switched. That principle has been followed for centuries. But the one beside me, who has spent one grant for this ticket, didn’t even know that? I was surprisingly shocked.

“Haven’t you watched cricket before in TV?”
The reply was a “YES” with a look as if I have asked something highly offensive.
“Haven’t you noticed the ends being switched at the end of every over?”
The answer was now a “NO” with an innocent look.
The third one was anxiously looking at both of us.
“I believe at least you know that.”
The reply was a simple horizontal nod.
Since the fourth one knew the least about cricket, I didn’t dare to ask her.

Now that was the popularity IPL had in India. I do believe, not only these three, millions would have been attracted to this stuff just because of its dynamic and spontaneous actions and the effect brought by IPL in India was terrific.


NB:

There are some things which money can’t buy.

&

There are some people who don’t know why they buy 