Hi, friends! All of you, who were accusing T20 limited over cricket to have ruined a gentleman’s game of text book cricketing shots and great copy book bowling, can now at least be fair to the
recently concluded IPL 2023 (Season 16). What a Season we just had?
A total of 70 league matches and 4 matches of the playoff from the 31 March to the Final played on 29 May. It makes us believe that Cricket is indeed Life; everything else is just a game. We had this “gentleman’s game” being played by beasts. And the magic that unfolded kept us totally mesmerized to our TVs. All debates of matches being fixed can be buried forever.
We had many high-scoring thrillers, stumps cart wheeling, sixes and boundaries galore, and fielders showing superman type abilities. Overall it has truly been a treat to watch and every evening the level of the game went up by another notch. Be it Rinku Singh’s 5 sixes or LSG’s last ball win over RCB, or the bowling of Rashid Khan, Shami, Mohit Sharma or the fireworks in the batting of Suryakumar Yadav, King Kohli, Shubman Gill or the captaincy of Dhoni, Hardik or the fielding of Ruturaj, Markram – the list is endless. Thank you all for entertaining us for so many weeks.
The Final was the cherry on the cake and the last over win was a heart stopper roller coaster – the excitement of the last 2 balls which Jadeja stunningly delivered with a 6 and a 4.
The excitement of the epic final is now over and the cricket pundits and management gurus are back again; all praises for Captain Cool Dhoni’s captaincy, as he was expressionless when Shubman’s easy catch was dropped and heavily critical of Hardik for micro managing Mohit Sharma after his 4 deliveries of the last over. Jane bhi do yaro. It was great fun.
Yes, few things definitely be said. Is the DLS Method fair? Was it not the right time for Dhoni to retire? Why BCCL does not pay Income Tax on their huge profits? As T20 is heavily in favour of side batting second, should we not have 2 innings? Why this aggression on the field (Virat–Gautam, Virat–Ganguli)? Is this the behavior of role models of millions of youngsters watching the game? Why these trolls on the cricketers and their families if your desired result did not happen?
Personally the memories that linger in my mind are the sight of Rishabh Pant cheering for DC from the stands, or Gavaskar running to Dhoni for getting his shirt autographed or Virat–Kohli hugging.
In the end it is not the beast in the gentleman who wins our hearts but the gentleman in the beast.
by Sanjay Sarda (7838330700)
