Its been long, I was thinking of writting blog about memorable moments/experiences of life...but as always kept on delaying it. Anywayz better late than never...and what a start, thought of writting my first ever blog on my first ever experience of watching live cricket match in the ground. There is another first ever...yes, this was the first ever IPL (Indian Premier League) tournament being played. Lets start with first thing first...as in all the important moments, date plays an important role, It was 20th April and Mumbai Indians were suppose to play there first ever (another first ever :)) match in the tournament against "the Banglore"...oh I mean "the Bengaluru Royal Challengers" (no it was not there first, but second match, they were ruined by Calcutta Knight Riders in their first and inaugural match of the tournament).We (me and my 2 colleagues, one of them really crazy about cricket) planned for this one as time pass activity during weekend, as Mr. Krazzy's wife has relieved him from the painful job of being a hubby for 1 month and left for her home city....Its really difficult for a married man to pass their weekend alone at home...we bachelors are used to it. Mr Krazzy got this idea very late, so I was assigned duty to arrange tickets, and which I managed to do. On Sunday, we took help of indian railway to reach till JJ hospital, no not because I was going to get admit there, or niether I was there to see the class room, where Munnabhai MBBS was shot. But to collect the ticket from my cousin, who is doing MBBS there. Though it was not at all good experince to see JJ hospital....never expected the place, which has produced and still producing the finest doctors in India, to be full of garbadge and totally unhygienic. Don't want to talk about this now....probably will write about this in some other blog later. Hmm... I think I forgot to thank my cousin, the person who made this moment to come in our lives, anywayz let me thank him now. A Big Thanks Nonu!!!! (now atleast I will made one person to read this blog ;)).
After collecting tickets, we took our old Royal Fiat cab, and I think we just crossed the revolving resturant at churchgate and were about to catch Marine Drive road, when suddenly a Red light stopped us, we were eagerly waiting to reach ground, though we were two n half hour advance.All of us were eager to be there, because it was first ever for all of us, and we never been to live match like this before. But I think there was more for us in store, as when we were waiting for green signal, I suddenly saw a police gypsy coming with hooter on, and guess what....it was followed by a luxury bus written "Mumbai Indians....Duniya Hila dengey"...yes it was the bus having all the STARS of "the Mumbai Indian" team....the team we were supporting...and why not....this is the team headed by Cricket God SACHIN RAMESH TENDULKAR. Bus stopped for a moment as it was red light, but being VIP bus, they were given safe passage even on RED light. But we all were more excited just seeing the bus of our favourite team....and do not know why whenever I am on Marine Drive, I feel great and happy....may be it makes me feel I m in the real mumbai which I had seen in the movies...or probably it reminds me of the Hussain Sagar lake @ hyderabad....or may be I am just fascinated with beauty of Arbian Sea, whatever it was, it just added to my mood . Another thing which might have boosted my mood was probably that I was feeling quite light, because I was not carrying my mobile....a permanent running deamon process, which makes everyone check for missed call, was disabled for that moment. It was difficult when we first decided not to carry mobile with us, as it was printed on the ticket back that mobile phone will not be allowed due to security reasons.....and we like good citizen followed the rule and kept our mobile in my cousin's locker. Initially deamon process caused a problem, every five min hand was going to pocket in search of mobile, but slowly in the excitement of game, mind just forgot abt this.
Anywayz, I felt bit disappointed when I saw police men are not at all bother about the mobile or even about the security. Because I was carrying steel made key ring, and no police men bothered to check what I am carrying, it may be anything rt??....but lets leave it here...seeing so much crowd, it wasn't possible to check each & everyone's pocket. As soon as, we enetered the gate after security checks, we were received by CITI girl, though she did not seems to be impressed with my looks...she did not catch me who was leading...rather choose my friend Mr. Krazzy, who was following me and asked him whether he has any citi bank card....we replied No with bad face...then she asked simple question "which are the 2 teams who won their matches yesterday?".....to my surprise Mr krazzy forgot the second team's name....then I jumped in for his resecue...and we both were equally rewarded with free white colored T shirt having CITI logo on it. Seems like she was there for just ditributing it, and all that quiz was just a formality, bcoz our 3rd partner Mr. Shayar got it without any effort. We were just discussing, how desperately we need such T-Shirts for our gym regime....and we found ourselves in the stadium...in middle of crowd...or as our Mr. Shayar exclaimed...we were surrounded by the real mumbai babes....we saw some of real mumbai beauties on our stand....oh did I mention stand name...it was "Sachin Tendulkar Stand". I think this would have been one of those rare occassion where I reached before scheduled time. Yes, we reached 2 good hours before the match time. But I do not remember how these 2 hrs passed....i think one of the fastest 2 hrs 0f life. Bangloru team (dressed in ugly orange red) was there on ground practicing....and we saw Venkatesh Prasad, balling coach of B'lore, having look at pitch......and then we saw 2 Australian players (sorry still could not figure out who those two were) dressed in same ugly orangish red running on the ground....to my surprise these were the only 2 who were running and warming up....they completed around 5-6 circles, none of other player completed even a single circle. I was thinking these two might be having gr8 stemina....since they may have to play a match after this....but later i realized they were walking outside boundary even while the match was being played.....they were actually non playing team members form B'nglr. We saw Mumbai Indian warming up in a unique way by throwing ball randomly to each other....and after that they were parcticing their skills...bowler were trying to hit stump and where as batsmen were doing net practice.....it was gr8 to watch our heroes practicing in the white flood lights, since it was day night match they started swithcing on flood lights slowly one by one. I must say wankhade is not very Big ground, people can be recognized if you have seen them on TV earlier and remember their posture n texture.......well one man who was easily recognizable... was non other than "man from JALANDHAR" Harbhajan Singh...bhajji as people call him. Anywayz thats not it....apart from that we had jam packed crowd, chanting "Mumbai"..."Bhaji"..."Ganpatti Bappa Moriya".."Sachin"...and god knows what. But we were also taking part in it....and crying out with crowd. There were some foolish people also, booing Australian players who were warming up.....couple of people are enough to destroy the reputation of Country.....but its not their fault, probably this is what they have been tought by their parents. There were few others including girls, probably just passed out of school, they were just seems to be like professional chain smoker.......as always...it disturbed me, I could not understand why people smoke.....and even if they smoke, what make them to be chain smoker....I tried smoking/boozing probably in my lows...but I think I was still strong enough to resist and could never touch cigrate to my lips. Anywa I think that was not rt time to give them lecture on this.....but i was not either in the mood of passive smoking....so I asked them not to smoke..... but like true kids, they kept on smoking keeping their heads down. Well apart from this....people were busy in guessing who is practicing in the net or at wickets. Just seeing MRF bat ppl guessed its none other than the Cricketing God S.R Tendulkar himself......just seeing him in nets, people started chanting his name.....and everyone started expecting that he will play & lead Mumbai Indians....but sachin choosed to stay out of game due to injury and handed over captancy to Bhajji. So I got another reason to support Mumbai Indians...." a man from Jalandhar...supporting sardar from jalandhar".....thats the caption and one more " I m supporting winning team and cricket"....thats what I thought for my banner to attract TV camera, so my Mom Dad can see me.......and I carried marker also....but to my bad luck, I could not find white paper there. But still there were some intelligent people who carried white paper with them....one of them had written very good caption "Mom says watch cricket not Girls :)"....and there were few people who forgot its not international match and they were carrying India Flag....but anyway it was nice to see our Try-Color flying there...just loved it.
Before the match could start, there was a couple of performances by the Mumbai Indian's Desi Cheer leaders. "Cheer leaders" is the new concept introduced in the T20 torunaments and thanks Vijay Malya who paid crores of rupees to hire a dozen of Playboy babes to be cheer leader of the B'lore team . We were lucky to have opponent in B'lore team, so we could see these million dollar babes performing just in front of us :))......Thanks to some hittings, DJ music and Punjabi dhol which kept these babes in action. There were another ceremony, being first match for Mumbai INdian in this IPL tournament, Mr. Ambani came to cheer up his team..I will say this line in hindi "unhoney apni team ko topi bhi pehnayee" :) and lot of fire work was there to mark the begining of tournament in Mumbai...Well there was another surprise, Tashan (movie) team, which was supporting Mumbai Indians were there on the ground.....Anil Kapoor, who was having mic and charging up crowd by "ganpati bappa morya"....Karina Kapoor, who was looking slim and sexy..... and chottey Nawab Saif with his son took round of the ground.
And then appeared the two captains "indian wall" Rahul Dravid & Bhajji alongwith the umpires for the toss and Bhajji won the toss and elected to bat....but I never saw people booing Rahul Dravid, atleast never expected people will do this to batsman like Rahul Dravid in his home country INDIA and same people will cheer up Jaysurya....even Jaysurya might not have expected this that he will get such response,hmm...what to say...this is all IPL affect. Then started the great grand IPL match, whole ground was shouting in rythm "mumbai"....Ronchi & Jaysurya came for opening...jaysurya played few good shots before getting run out...and then another player Domnick soon had to retire hurt becoz of bouncer from Zaheer Khan. But match was full on...being a 20-20 match lot of firing and shots were there...and People were standing shouting and clapping, every time a boundary or long shot was hit, so we had good exercise, I think we might have burnt as much calories as we normally burn in the GYM....Thanks to Uthappa and Pollock...mumbai Indian put 165 runs on the board...It was not a gr8 or competitive score....but I think we had already received full value of our money....so just wanted to see what mumbai Indians have in store for the opponent in their home ground.Before second half could start...I jumped out of stadium to grab some pepsi...but pepsi counter was as packed as stadium was...so it was a kind of fight which I had to fight and win....some how managed to get it. By the time we reached back to stadium, players were back on field. Rahul Dravid and Chanderpaul opened from b'lore side and Dravid was really playing good, infact he hit 2 continous six on before harbhajan caught n bowled him in the same over...During the match suddenly I heard huge shout in stadium and started looking here and there....and I found TV Screen in gorund was displaying Sexy Katrina Kaif's face from B'lore team's camp...As an brand ambassador of B'lore team, she was there to cheer up his team. Well I missed watching couple of shots bcoz of Katrina and few becoz of these cheer girls...not bcoz I was really attracted by these foreigners, but bcoz I wanted to see what steps do they perform on Punjabi beats. Well its debatable issue now, whether these cheer leader should be there in IPL or not...but I personally think, it is really damaging cricket and our culture....I really liked the suggestion given by some one on one of the News Channel, I m putting in quote "if at all we want to have cheer leader for real purpose of cheering their team and crowd, we should have our local cheer leaders in our traditional dress and performing traditional dance steps...like mumbai indian doing konkini and Punjabi doing giddha and bahngra". As I mentioned this is debatable...so lets not get in to debate here and concentrate on our match. There was some fantastic bawling and fielding as well by Pollock. I really liked his attitude, he was fielding at long on near to our stand and keep showing his cap and waving hand to the crowd, which made crowd to chant his name. Match had become really interseted in the later half of the 20 overs, before one bad over (18th) bowled by Mr. Nehra...which really took match away from Mumbai Indians. But I really liked the fighting spirit of our Sardar. d. He is really a fast learner. He really showed true punjabi character and did not loose confidence till last over. He kept on going to bawler after each ball and discussed the field. But B'lore team managed to finish with 2 balls still remaining.
Anywayz it was good match all n all. Crowd already started leaving specially those with their Girl Friend....we like as always followed them. I think we did not come out, but rather pushed out ofstadium...it was like supply belt. It was already 12 in night and We could not find any Taxi there and kept on walking with crowd till we got one cab. Thanks to bollywood "1 challis ki last local" we knew it is not that late and we can still catch train. We took cab to JJ hospital and picked our mobiles from hostel and then we went to Byculla Station where we had typical mumbaiya dinner "Wadda paw"...cheap and really tasty...Infact I had another one after getting down at vikhroli station.
What a experince it was...this is what we call "a day", I was satisfied. I could not sleep properly after coming back and was all excited. Don't tell anyone, but I could not work at office also next day, not because I was not able to come out of this roller coaster ride...no not even becoz I was thinking what to write in this blog, but bcoz my back was really giving me hard time...all those jumps and shouts on almost every shot gave me tough time. Like normal kid I was really missinng...ok lets not close this Blog in emotional mode :)
Oh my god...how many lines I have written...just wondering, if I could have written this much in my graduation english essay question, I would not have been 50% scorer in English :)...Anywayz, consdering this as my first blog, Guys (and girls--if any) don't try to find mistake in this one. Just appreciate the effort I put in writting this one ;)....Hope I will write few more, as and when I feel like, till then...enjoy ur time!!!
