paragraph on how i enjoyed watching an ipl match in a stadium
Answers
It was my first match ever in stadium (apart from district level matches). It was between RPS & DD in Pune.
We (me and my friends working at tata motors ) reached to the stadium by cab. I thought security would be very tight as no sharp objects were allowed in the stadium not even coins. But the guards simply asked if we had coins didn't check anything. Selfisticks were not allowed but later I saw many people pout during the match taking selfi with big selfisticks.
We went early as we wanted to see the practice session too. There was nice selfie points outside stadium.
Then we went inside the stadium, it looked quite small as I was expecting it to be quite big in size. The screens seemed to be awfully small. I enquired my friend( who has seen matches at two different stadiums in Punjab viz. Chandigarh and Mohali), if they were the same size size and he nodded. It seemed big in TV.
It was quarter past seven when players came out for warming up. We bought the cheapest seats available ( 600 bucks) and were seating around sweeper cover from one end or mid wicket from another end. To my surprise, the people around me who were in the cheapest stand made least noise compared to that in the other stands of the ground. It was really hard to recognise any player during the practice session( and I can recognise most players just by their body language on TV) but from that far naah.
Pune was practicing on our side and Delhi was on the other side of the ground. I could make Faf du Plessis, Ben stokes, Rahane ( only because of his stance ) and Jaydev Unadkat by his bowling action. Dhoni didn't practiced at all. And from Delhi side, I could make out Rabada, Cummins, Pant(because he keeps), Shahbaz Nadeem( left hand spin). Foreign players were easy to recognise without their jerseys.
At toss saw Danny Morrison ( thank God he is bald). Rahane won the toss ( yeah no Smith justifies why Faf was practicing) and choose to bowl. No Manoj Tiwari instead some debutant Rahul Tripathi. Why Rabada and Unadkat were practicing as they were not including in the 11?
Before the match, there was a contest where the anchor Samir would pick any random guy and ask questions about their favourite cricketer( still don't know why all six of them were girls and that in their early or mid twenties). Five of them end up up winning the contest by answering very simple questions like what is x's favourite dish? One girl didn't even listened to options and told straight away that Faf's mobile wallpaper is a pic of him with his wife. I was intrigued by the knowledge they had about their favourite player.
Since we were sitting on the square side couldn't make if the ball was swinging or not and were relying on either screen or umpire's arm to even know it was a wide ball. But a straight drive looks perfect from side on position.
I was cheering my heart out and I was supporting Delhi ( only because it depends on young talents) and supporting other team is a crime in Pune. A young man with his GF was sitting besides me, who had to explain her what was going on every ball. Some office guys on my left and some young Marathi guys in front of me.
You loose the sense of time during the match( with TV you remember everything like the second ball was a leg bye and all). How match goes that fast? How did they reached 50 so soon? Surely scorers were cheating. I was making very mean statements like when Sanju missed one flighted delivery of Tahir I shouted “ theek se khel nahi to bolega ki khali Zimbabwe leke jate ho” and he went on to make century just to mock me.
To add to that Morris scored 38 of 8. It was all written on the face of the crowd.DD made above 200.
I was waiting for Cummins to bowl to see how ball at 150 case feels like.It was going to be very tough to reach even close to that without the Smith. Pune kept loosing wickets Agarwal, Rahane,and debutant Tripathi went early. Though even in that short stay you could tell that he was a gifted player with his balance and timing. S the Pune fans were so upset with me I could hear a guy saying “ pehle bar dekhne aaya hoga isiliya itna uchhal raha hai”. Though he was right but he side that merely in frustration.
The guy in front of me couldn't bear what was going & on a six being hit, turned to me and said to me dekh “ Maahi mara na” and I told him that was hit by Bhatia to which he said “ koi to maara, Pune to maari”. I calmed him down and said no hard feelings bro, we are just some friends