IPL win for Chennai

I guess I am the last person to blog on this and infact I am trying to write when everyone has even forgotten the topic. But this semifinal and final were 2 matches which made me immensly happy, after a long long time. Its been more than a yr since I watched and enjoyed a match like this. Though I felt till we qualified for the semifinal, that we dont really deserve this, after the amazing win in semifinal and the same following in the final, I was really happy and felt so good for the Chennai team. All I saw was amazing team effort when bowling and fielding with some good batting performances. Specially I would say, fielding standard had improved a lot recently and Suresh Raina, my god, he is just amazing on the field!! Who can forget the catch he took or the maiden over from Ashvin, cool caption in Dhoni, with all other guys supporting so well and finally lifting the IPL Cup. It was a great moment when Polard got out and made sure that nothing can now stop Chennai from lifting the cup :) Wish we see similar cool performances in World T20 and win the cup for India :)

Does Chennai deserve to qualify?

When I think if we deserve to qualify, I feel we dont deserve more because if you see the matches lost, its been so pathetic! Such failures can never be digested. On the positive side I can recollect only the Rajasthan Royals game worth but nothing else. Still I end up sitting to calculate, Can Chennai qualify even if we lose to Punjab and I feel upset when I find that the answer is No :(

Its really sad to read the paper where Dhoni has said, its not in our hands and more with Deccan Charges game!! That adds more to my point of why should we qualify? Anyways I have no idea on doing anything other than watch the game tomorrow, fingers crossed that Chennai should win and then again watch the second game more curiously to see who loses Delhi or Deccan :)

Pathetic Experience at MAC entrance

I have been to MAC stadium twice for test matches and once during 2008 IPL. But I had the worst possible experience this week when I made it for CSK and MI match. People warned me that you won’t get good seats unless you make it to stadium 2 or 3 hrs in advance. Being a working day, I could make it to stadium by 6.45 PM for 8PM match. I was shocked to see that the gate for Rs 500 was crowded with the queue running from gate in bells road to Madras University entrance on Wallajah Road. I was trying to verify if it was some problems which lead to that big queue. But I could not identify any issues in any other gates. There were queues but to the maximum of 100 people or so. What I saw in Rs 500 queue was close to 3000 people.

Ofcourse there were number of people trying to break the queue and join in between but I still wonder how things can be so unorganized that people had to miss 2 to 5 overs of the game before they could enter the stadium.The entrance gate is so damn small that it permits only one person to pass through at a time, whereas the stand corresponding to that gate is one of the largest stands. I can only wish that these kind of things dont happen again!!
 

Cricket World Cup 2011

I just happened to read the latest news on SriLanka and India hosting the semi finals of the world cup and India hosting the finals. It feels good to have another world cup in Asia with India doing major hosting. But for us to have the complete fun and fever of cricket, whats more important is Peace around. How are we going to make sure each and every player plays with peace of mind and no care and worry about security and safety.

With so much of 20 20 around, Its going to be hard to make the crowd sit for a 50 50 game in future. Not only that, it will take some time to tune our minds for our regular game. It is such a privilege and fun to be the host country again and I only hope that things turn for good and better in the next 2 yrs and we have a peaceful exciting fun filled trilling series. Hopefully we see some country break the record which the Aussies have been having for the last 3 world cups and I personally wish its India who does that and raise the trophy this time :)

IPL T20 2009

I had a hard time to find a good link where I can get decent clarity and good streaming for the live matches. I have a good time watching the night matches. Its been a big surprise to me to find that teams who were so much behind last time have come forward so well so far whereas the 2 major teams who performed best last yr are miserably down :(

Its great to see Deccan, Mumbai, Royal Challengers coming up so well but being a die hard fan of Chennai, it hurts to see the way our team is performing. Though we cant conclude anything from the first 10 days of matches, it lets the spirit go down and get a feel "are we Chn super kings already thrown out this yr?" One disappointment is rain spoiling the matches and letting teams get 1 points each. These one points will later play a crucial role and make teams qualify for next round. So better option is to win every possible match that comes up rather than mess up in tension in the last few matches where again we don't just hope for our team to win but sometimes hope some teams lose so that we qualify for the next round ;-)

I don't know how our people are enjoying the series back home. Is the same spirit and cricket fever there though the series is not conducted in India?

One good thing is the crowd I see in these matches in South Africa. I was infact expecting very much empty stands, buts its nice to see good amount of crowd. Just hoping that matches don't go one sided as we have seen few in the last week and have good fun and trill in each match. After all the idea of 20 20 itself is complete thrill and fun. At the same time I wish Chn super kings can get better from the next match and let fans feel more happy :)