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IPL Diaries - Match by Chance (Pune Warriors vs Deccan Chargers)

Magneto

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The Subroto Roy Sahara Stadium is located on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway; and on April 26, after finishing a meeting at Navi Mumbai, I suddenly decided to gatecrash for my first IPL match of the season. My meeting got over at 7, and we drove down furiously towards the state-of-the-art Subroto Roy stadium to catch whatever we could of the match. We didn't really have any tickets, but being a regular at cricket stadiums, I very well knew how and where I could get hold of a couple of tickets. After managing a couple of North Stand tickets, we rushed in as Deccan was in its 19th over. And this is what all happened around us in the next two hours: yuviback_630.jpga) Free food and water - In a commendable effort, Sahara is providing everyone with free water and branded bhujia during the match. You can pick up as many packets of 'Bikaneri Bhujia' - a product of the Sahara Q Shop' as you wish to from the stalls. b) Rang bhare badal se - As we walked into the almost-filled stadium during the 19th over, we were welcomed with 'Rang bhare badal se' blaring loudly through the systems. The mood and the atmosphere of the circus was set. :dance: A few minutes later, the crowds were swaying to the beats and waving their flags to the rhythm of 'Jumma Chumma de de'. Sadly, all the music-shusic were cut off after 10, and we all realized that an IPL match without music is akin to cheerleaders without pom-poms. c) The Deccan hotties - Throughout the match, towards the North stand, Saharashri Subroto Roy's saree-clad sati-savitri cheerleaders were showing off their classical dance skills on a podium putting the spectators to sleep. Things brightened up where the delicious Deccan divas decided to come this way for a jog (during the break), and the whole stand of spectators stood up to welcome and cheer the sultry, hip-swaying, truly cheerful bunch of girls. True to the mood of the salivating spectators the PA system played - 'Aisa mauka aur kahaan milega'. d) Tamim, the showstopper - For the last few weeks, news reports have been coming in about how distraught Bangladeshi supporters are busy burning effigies of Ganguly and Subroto Roy for not playing their rockstar batsman Tamim Iqbal. Had they been in the ground, they would have realized how well :pw: is using Tamim. They have recognized his rockstar skills and are using him as the ultimate showstoppa during the ten-minute break. He's the one who helps decide the Karbonn Kamaal Audience of the day by hitting balls in the air so that they can catch it. Tamim hit his aerial shots shots twice for every competitor, and each time he hit the balls so far away from them that even Jonty Rhodes would have struggled to make ground and take those catches. e) Cheer of the day - Ganguly's cracking SIX over long on off Gony was the shot of the day for the cheering Puneites. Everyone optimistically murmured that though Dada is looking rickety and can hardly move in the field, he still has some amount of game left in him. f) Anxious moments of the day - 1) Manish Pandey's mishit in the 3rd over off Duminy resulted in a collective sigh. He was being called 'Parle-G' in our part of the stadium (Pandey ---> Pandeyji ---> Parle G) 2) Uthappa's SIX off Mishra in the 6th over resulted in a slightly louder collective sigh as it just cleared Gony on the boundary. Hopes were still alive and rocking then! 3) When Duminy dropped Ganguly in the first delivery of the tenth over, the audience let out a loud hum exactly in sync as everyone's hearts were in their mouths. This was the last piece of tension as after the over everyone stopped caring about the match and decided to have a ball and get their money's worth. g) Rocking rivalry of the day - Ganguly vs Gony - As DC was practising during the ten-minute break, Manpreet Gony kept steaming in bowling at a single stump (which he broke thrice), and you could see a man on a mission. Later on, Ganguly drew first blood by depositing Gony straight over long-on resulting in Gony staring at Ganguly with his hands on his hips. A few overs later, Ganguly tried to cut Gony through point and Duminy dropped a sitter. A furious Gony just clapped sarcastically for a few moments and went back to his mark. A few balls later (in the same over) Ganguly stepped out to Gony and hit straight to Harris this time; and Gony's gladiator-like celebration proved now badly he wanted to win this contest. h) Audience :facepalm: moment of the match - Ganguly's attempted :fail: paddle-scoop off Gony evoked loud jeers and giggles from the crowd. It reminded me of the 'Ganguly wants to switch-hit' thread at ICF, and the comment - 'Aap pehle normally hi hit karein'. :cantstop: i) Bhoole toh nahi - Amidst all the hoopla and frenzy, the new-look Yuvraj Singh's face (complete with white-rimmed sunglasses) was flashed on the screen. An unexpected silence followed, as most people failed to recognize him for a few moments. Gradually, loud whispers gave way to spontaneous cheering, and the home crowd recognized its last-season captain. Yuvraj let out a smile too after having gone through those eerily silent moments. j) Panauti cheergirls - Since the music was cut off, the Pune cheergirls were simply sitting on their chairs all this time. Suddenly, for some strange reason they got onto the podium; and the moment they stood there, Samuels hit a ball in that reason as if to give them catching practise. Sanga caught the ball midway sending Samuels back and the sheepish cheergirls got off the podium immediately. k) Gully cricketers - Since the writing was on the wall, and no one was hitting SIXES or FOURs neither were the cheergirls dancing, the crowd decided to amuse themselves by making fun of the Pune cricketers. A group of boys nearby asked each other who Mithun Manhas was, and wondered he is a 'gully' cricketer. They eventually summed up that Pune is filled with gully cricketers, since it is led by a gully cricketer called Gan-gully. l) The new Mexican wave - Steven Smith and Manhas's late burst hardly gave any hope to anyone and the crowd looked for new things to amuse themselves. The Spider-Cam seems to the new object of affection for them and everytime it points at the audiences and moves along a horizontal line, the audiences stood up to cheer for it creating an unintentional Mexican wave across the stadium. Quite a sight that was. m) Sunnybhai, Sunnybhai - Sunil Gavaskar came in front of the North Stand during the 19th over diverting the crowd attention onto himself. Chants of 'Sunnybhai, Sunnybhai' and 'Sunil Bhau, Sunil Bhau' took over as Sunny pretended to talk to a cameraman and look through his camera. A little later, he took to the crowd and signed some autographs and the last two meaningless overs were getting completed. At the end, a few thousand pretty Pune babes and thousands of dejected Pune Fanatics silently trudged back into the darkness of the night leaving the bright stadium behind. We too rushed back to our vehicles to avoid an impending traffic chaos as I hoped that I do not doze off at the wheel on our way back. Home was still 132 kms away.

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