In India, a country of over a billion people, cricket is not just a sport; it’s a religion they say.
Now, for the first time ever, with a free ticket in my hand I got a chance to witness India’s greatest sporting spectacle live– The Indian Premiere League – An idea that changed the gentleman’s game forever. With a negligible amount of knowledge that I had about this sport, I was thinking why am I even going there? Would it be worth spending 3-4 hours of a weekend watching a sport that I hardly watch on TV, except from the times when India plays against Pakistan or it is a critical Mumbai Indians match during which my heart cheers for Mumbai just because I am a Mumbaikar.
So yes, I reached the stadium 2 hours before the match was scheduled. Call it the excitement or the fact that people asked me to be there before time so that I could get in faster and would not have to wait in the long queue. I remember when I entered the stadium and got a sneak peek into the exciting aspect of IPL and Bollywoodisation of it with music playing all around. I was like Wow this is really cool. The game had completely changed; I mean you get to see the best International players playing together, awesome music playing after every single over, the crowd dancing like every single moment is a celebration out there.
I think it was important cricket became like this, I mean not just a sport but everything that has started has to evolve as the time goes by or it just becomes less popular. And genuinely, to sit down for 9-10 hours watching a sport and cheer once in a while when a wicket falls down or a batsman hits a six, I think it’s a retirement plan more than watching a sport. I personally believed cricket could have a little more speed and aggression. In the words of Shah Rukh Khan – “With all due respect to being a gentleman’s sport, I think it needed to become a man’s sport.” The sport is still the same, we still have the bat, the bigger, the heavier, the faster and we still have a ball; it’s just white in colour.
The game was on, Mumbai Indians was batting and one positive thing about watching a match live at the stadium is that you can’t just sit there and not cheer for your team, you just can’t do that. With every bowl, with every run, with every moment the excitement just pumps up. From the celebration of a sixer to the ‘ohhhhhh’ sound of a miss you just feel every moment of this sport.
To sum it up, it was a game that kept us sitting at the edge of our chairs and be ready to cheer till the last over of the game when the results were out and unfortunately, Mumbai Indians lost. Yes, it was a disappointing moment and yes it made us angry but come on, you gotta take sport as a sport. We play, we win, we lose – I mean that’s what the sport is all about, right?
Let’s just say it wasn’t our day and to be honest, Mumbai Indians tried its best but we can’t just win all the time. So cheers to Chennai Super Kings for the well deserved victory, to the experience of a lifetime that we got at Wankhede Stadium and to the evolution of this game of cricket over the years. In the end it was a Win-Win situation being a part of an awesome game, clicking mad selfies and shouting till we lost our voice completely.
And now I know why Cricket is not just a sport, but a religion for our country.
That Filmy Guy 