Royal Challengers BanGAYLEore!!!!

It was after a disappointing loss to CSK, our third on the trot after having won the first game against KTK, that reality sunk in. A few of us friends were at a bar and having a drink and we were dejected and angry that the top management had not retained top performers like Ross Taylor, Steyn, Dravid, Robin ..... We had gloom written over all our faces! But still, we did not lose faith and sat there discussing what could turn the fortunes for RCB and hoping that we won the 8 games required to seal a semifinal spot. A friend mocked at me and said, “You still have hopes on RCB this season?” I replied in the affirmative and said, “We have bounced back before and will do it again.”

Enter CHRIS GAYLE!! It was at the same bar and on the same gloomy evening that a friend of mine messaged me saying that he got reliable inside information that RCB were signing up Chris Gayle. That brought a smile on my face and another drink went down.  But there was no news about it, not on cricinfo, not on the RCB website and not on any newspaper or channel.  A few days passed and finally we got official confirmation that Gayle had indeed signed up. From the moment he stepped onto the field against the Knight Riders in the Eden Gardens, RCB was a different team. ‘INTERGAYLEACTIC’, ‘GAYLEVANISED’, ‘GAYLE MORNING’ were now everyday language. GAYLE was now being used as the superlative of every word. A girl would understand if a guy came upto her and said, “I GAYLE you, GAYLEHEART”.  The DLF IPL and India was hit by the GAYLESTORM.  He came in with the bat, smashed the ball around and embarrassed many a bowler. He came in with the ball, bowled economically, got crucial wickets and put in a dance step bringing smiles on all our faces. He was surely enjoying his cricket. Thank you West Indies Cricket Board.

It is difficult but we must remember that it was not just Gayle. There were crucial performances from all our players at various stages in the tournament. Virat Kohli seemed to be in sublime form and is probably ready to adopt Bangayleore as his home.  Vettori proved to be the ideal replacement for Anil Kumble and on a bad day, only on a bad day would he go above 7 runs per over. Arvind showed us that with a big heart, you can do wonders on the field. Zaheer Khan was a bit rusty at the beginning but came into his own gradually. AB was a livewire and his energy rubbed off on the rest.  Driven by Gayle, this RCB unit rolled on, beating team after team, quite easily and finished the league stage at the top of the table.

Gayle failed and CSK did beat us in that first play-off.  We next had Mumbai Indians on our platter, a team which had got the better of us more often than not. But it was to be different this time – Malinga, Harbhajan, Pollard and whoever dared to bowl that day were put to the sword by namma Chris Gayle. Young Mayank Agarwal too played a very mature knock and in no time RCB had crushed Mumbai Indians and qualified for our 2^nd Final. What happened in the Finals is unfortunate but it has to be said that we must be thrilled to be RCBians.

Let’s take a pledge that we will be ‘Royal Challengers for Life’ and let me hear you all say “JAI RCB!”

INDIAN CRICKET – RELIGION TO SOME, LIFE-BLOOD FOR OTHERS

We’ve heard it over and over again that cricket is a religion in India. It is the one thing that unites people from all walks of life, people of different castes and creeds. It basically unites the entire nation. But is cricket limited to only that? I think the time has now come to say that cricket is ‘blood’ for many of us, something without which we cannot live.  Some said that after the World Cup, we Indians would be saturated and have no interest in the IPL. Yes, the ratings have shown a dip, but we lovers of the game had the same passion and intensity as in IPL 1,2 and 3. It just shows that we can never have too much of cricket.

What is it that makes the game so much of an addiction for us? Well there is no definite reason, but we do enjoy being a part of the emotional rollercoaster that is associated with every cricket game. Not many of us sit back in a lounge chair and watch a game of cricket and say, “Oh! That was relaxing.” We probably are more emotionally drained than the players themselves. The players atleast have some control over the match and to an extent hold their destiny in their own hands. We fans are helpless and cannot make a contribution, but there are some of us who like to believe that we can. Yes it is foolhardy but that is the sort of involvement we like to show, we like to believe that by sitting in a particular position for 6 hours will win India the game. We like to believe that by giving up rice for 6 months India will win the World Cup. We have lucky t-shirts for match days, compulsory phone calls to make and so on. Thanks to all these little superstitions we believe that we have made a contribution to our team and are able to share the same feelings as the team. A loss will hurt us deeply and if by chance we have not followed one of our routines that day, we will take a long time to forgive ourselves and take blame for the defeat. A victory will delight us and will make us believe that we have made a contribution and encourage us to follow more such superstitions in the future.  Yes, you can call these fans crazy and I am proud to be a ‘crazy fan’.

This World Cup win has only raised the passion for the game.  April 2^nd, 2011 will be remembered as one of the best days of our lives. The image of Kapil Dev holding aloft the World Cup on the Lords Balcony in 1983 made us proud but also, especially for those of us who weren’t born then, created an urge, a desire and the hope to win another World Cup. The nation waited for 28 long years to experience the same euphoria again. The moment that ball left Dhoni’s bat we were elated. It was beyond joy and the scenes that followed are what make us so happy to be “crazy fans”.  It felt like we, 1 billion of us played the World Cup and it would be hard to say that we were any less happy than the players themselves.

The other day, a TV channel was telecasting India’s road to the World Cup victory and it brought tears to my eyes. We will never get tired of seeing Dhoni hit that ball over long on for six and then embracing Yuvraj Singh. That was the moment when an entire nation went crazy and some of us went beyond….