Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Mumbai wins over Rajasthan, IPL games back in Wankhede now...


The Mumbai win over Rajasthan was a good one. Things seemed to be going Rajasthan's way when the TV commentators started interviewing Sachin Tendulkar. The resulting roars in the stadium whenever Sachin's face showed up seemed to unnerve the batsmen and they collapsed in a hurry. So Sachin had an enormous impact by just having his face shown on the jumbotron.

The game also had a bizarre Graeme Smith dismissal. He and Pollock are probably not the best of friends. A slower ball from Pollock had Smith beaten and the ball brushed his pads on the way to the keeper. Pollock jumped up in excitement and Graeme Smith seemed to think that he was bowled just by looking at Pollock's face(and the crowd was roaring; probably that factored in too). He was already on his front feet and he just skipped and kept walking towards the pavilion on the non-strikers end. The keeper fumbled the ball, picked it up and took off the bails. Graeme Smith never looked back and Pollock got even more excited. The TV cameras showed the reactions of Dwayne Bravo; he was not sure what happened either as the Graeme Smith walk was really unexplainable.

Mumbai cheerleaders were fully clothed as usual, but the Russian Rajasthan Cheerleaders had their skirt on. And they are good gymnasts. These cheerleaders have had things thrown at them when they performed in front of 100 Rupee Rajasthan fans. Let us see how the moral politicians react to the skirts this time around. Looks like Rajasthan Royals did not display the same fear of BJP(Film Actor Sinha) and Shivsena(पानी थेम थेम गल Kondke) morality that was displayed by the Mumbai Indians. It will interesting to see what happens when other teams with skirty cheerleaders show up.

The venue for the remaining cricket matches has been moved from DY Patil Stadium to Wankhede. The DY Patil crowd was much more appreciative than the Wankhede crowd. The Wankhede crowd is ofcourse a more educated and partisan ground, but the games in DY Patil were definitely more festive. And Mr Patil did make an appearance during the award ceremony for the last game.


And here is another article on Cricinfo that explains how Calcutta pride is different from Mumbai pride. While Mumbai pride arises from the thinking that it is the "best", Calcutta pride comes out of the fact that it is their city even if it might be a dying city. Kolkata pride has more of a Devdas flavour whereas Mumbai pride has a more British flavour.

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