Grand final it was

Awesome sounds just like another word when I think back about the IPL final. Everything was amazing and great about the whole event. The DY Patil stadium, in Nerul Navi Mumbai, to start with is exceptionally beautiful and comfortable. It is very spacious and well planned to handle huge load of spectators. The lush green outfield, the beautiful lighting and well managed public services made the experience of IPL final even better. Coming back to the event, believe me you had to be there to witness one of the biggest extravaganza on a cricket field. The amazing performances by some of the known names in bollywood, the acrobatic performers from around the world and a very well executed laser show were all great treat for eyes. The money spent on ticket was all but recovered even before the coin was tossed.

There were a lot of other things worth witnessing than just the cricket, like the landing of a helicopter or a perfect parachute landing in the ground; all awesome and amazing. The cricket was not a let down either. I was hoping that the final should not turn a dud just like the semi finals and it did not. The match was decided on the last ball and that says it all.

I am sure you all would have seen the match so no point writing about the same, rather I would write some of the things that I noticed at the ground. Rajasthan Royals were a smart unit, they started their warm up early, in the daylight, and that was a very smart move as the lights were kept off for a long time due to the closing ceremony. Chennai started their warm up late and got very less time to bat and ball. Shane Watson is the best among Royals, not only while playing but also while practicing. He was out on field before everyone else and he practiced his shots, then his bowling, later did a lot of stretching and then practiced catching as well. It is important to sweat out in practice before the match, Shane Watson demonstrated that in the practice. Another thing I realized that it is not easy to play cricket in such environment. Believe me the noise level at ground was deafening while the players were getting prepared for final. How they are able to keep their mind on game is beyond me.

It was a dream come true to see my all time favorite spinners Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan in action. At the same time seeing young Indian players hitting them for sixes gave me a sense of pride.

It was a great experience, my first match at stadium and it was worth the money and efforts. The match was worth a final. The DY Patil Stadium is worth an evening. Though I was under impression that cameras were not allowed in the stadium but almost everyone had a camera in there. If I had my camera with me, I would have shown you some nice pics but then again some things are worth witnessing and experiencing.

Tarun Chandel
Sore throat, Eyes wide open and Mind in state of amazement.

Watch out for Tarun in the IPL Final

No no I am not going to play in the final match of the IPL. You will be surprised to know that, I was offered to play the final, there was a hostile bid and I was offered US$1.2M by one of the teams. But before I could sign the deal my milkman rang the doorbell and I woke up. Instead of getting US$1.2M I realized I had to pay him Rs120.

Ticket for the IPL Final Match

But then I thought, this cannot be the end of my IPL dream so, I bought a ticket for the final match. I am very excited to see the match and this is the first time that I am going to watch a match in stadium, I am hoping that it turns out to be a tight match. Hopefully not something like the semi finals which were both one sided games (I feel even worse as I missed the Mumbai bloggers meet at Pinstorm). No matter who wins the final, I wish that it turns out be a close tie. Though I personally think that Rajasthan Royals have the best chances to lift the first IPL trophy but, Chennai may spring a surprise. Especially as Dhoni is a very lucky man in such situations. Anyways watch out for me in the stands.

Tarun Chandel
Cricket, IPL Final and Me

T20, Change is Good!!!

Read and heard a lot about how 20-20 is the disruptive way of playing cricket and how it is going to kill 50-50. Also heard a lot about how it will take away the focus from good batting skills; bowlers anyhow have nothing for them in this game. I personally think that this has been a good change for the game of cricket. I always believe that to make sense of the present it's a good practice to look at the past. If we go back to 1975 when the concept of one day cricket was made public and how some people really loved the world cup and others just wrote it off as just another lame game. Well one day cricket grew in stature and became at one time more famous than the test. Then somewhere around 1990s ODIs became a colorful game, with colored clothes and different color balls. Around 1996 I remember the ODIs changed to be far more scoring and quick scoring matches, thanks to dynamic openers of Srilanka, Sanath Jayasuriya. From then on ODIs has been far better paced than before. This had it's effect on the test cricket as well, teams started scoring a lot many runs in less overs and thus giving them better chances of getting a results. There was a time when there used to be very few test matches with results but now we have almost all the tests with results. The ODIs which were written off as something that will kill the Test cricket has in-fact done a world of good to Test Cricket.

Test cricket is a more involved game there is different kick in watching the openers blunting the bowling attack of any team. Test Cricket tests the temperament and skills of a batsmen and any cricket fan worth his salt will swear that there is nothing more exciting than watching a slip cordon having 9 fielders waiting for one edge from the batsmen. Test matches have their own fans and they love the battle of skills, where bowlers keep testing the batsmen patience and keep playing on their nerves.

Test cricket no doubt is a long game takes 5 days to complete and not everyone likes to watch and appreciate the battle of nerves and temperament. ODIs on the other hand came as a refreshing change and people loved it, especially those who like the quickness of game. So what used to be a one or two sessions in the whole five days were extracted to make an ODI and it became popular.

20 -20 or T20 is doing something very similar to what ODIs did. It's getting a lot of flak from people/Pundits/Gurus, but just like ODIs T20 will stay and will surely affect ODIs and Tests at some point of time in Future. So as ODIs took around 20 years to affect Tests T20 will take around 5 years (new format gets adapted in half the time of it's original and new generation generally achieves results in half the time of their predecessors so that leads to 1/4th of 20) to affect ODIs and Tests. I am not trying to make any predictions, I am just trying to look at the past and make sense of the present. I think T20 will stay here and will make cricket only better. So in coming time we will see a lot of closely fought ODIs and may in the future see some super exciting sessions in the Test Cricket, where a batsman may come and smack the bowler all over the ground T20 style and change the whole match. Looking forward to such exciting times :)

Tarun Chandel
Life, Learning and Technology