IPL : An emotion (& an artwork)

-

Years ago, I had two TV obsessions: IPL and Zee Saregama. As time went by, my interest dwindled in them. I remember the inaugural season and how the late Shane Warne captained Rajasthan Royals to be the champions. I enjoyed fully well when the then Hyderabad team Deccan Chargers clinched the trophy. Enjoyed the histrionics over the years of Virat Kohli, A.B. De Villiers, MSD, David Warner, Chris Gayle, Bhuvi, Malinga, Rashid Khan and so many more. But then there was a ban, the number of teams increased and though the interest was still there, it was not the match to match, ball to ball, glued to the screen kind of interest. Until this year.

It was on a late evening in March that I sat with a bowl of haleem to watch a few overs of the SRH-MI game and I was hooked. Both to the game and the tournament. Felt good to see India’s richest family members sitting subdued. A shade of schadenfraude in me, maybe. Kavya jumped and danced like a kindergärtner. Records started tumbling. The IPL fan in me was fully back.

What a ride it was! Even in the matches SRH lost. Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma. Flashes by Heinrich Klaasen and sometimes by Nitish Reddy. After every game, there would be a buzz on Facebook with folks sharing instant reactions, surprises, analysis, joy, grief etc. Some on Facebook friends’ profiles, some on the SRH page. I interacted frequently with Ajay Pulipati and Sarita Agarwal. The SRH Facebook page team was the invisible motivator. Constantly posting about SRH’s achievements, keeping the fans motivated and keeping up the chin that we are different. I remember after one game, I went over to the SRH page and their post had 850 comments in about 10 minutes. Not likes. 850 comments. IPL became an emotion.

The good run came to an end in the finals. Kavya turned her back to the camera and cried. But I didn’t feel too bad about not winning the cup. I felt that the only team that could stop KKR this year was RCB. And they screwed up, as usual. From a well-balanced perspective, KKR was the best team this IPL. They truly deserved to be winners. SRH is a great team but not a wholesome team. They are well deserved runners up.

Fans never understood why Glenn Philips was not played even in one game. It’s widely anticipated SRH will retain Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Henrich Klaasen and Pat Cummins. Whatever be the composition of the team, they need a Chennai strategy. They lost both the games with Chennai and the finals at Chennai. Lots of lessons to learn. I’m sure they will come back blazing next year and hopefully lift the cup.

Here’s a portrait of Kavya Maran that I drew on my iPad. Dominant hues are orange-red and black, obviously. This was the first illustration I drew using Procreate but sharing second. I shared my second illustration first, in my previous post. This post need a good write-up and was either busy or lazy to share until today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mentoring Trainees In Java

-
Image
Every year we at 4S have a certain intake of trainees. They are asked to do a Java EE course at a training institute during their vacation before they join the company. The students do go to training institutes and come back with certificates. But when asked practical questions, we get blank faces. Despite whatever reputation and revenue they have, the Ameerpet training institutes just cover theory in classroom sessions. In fact, students are not even made aware of simple things like where to put the app files or the war file in the Tomcat container. This happened with the last year’s batch of management trainees too.
Read more

27th

-
Image
Wedding anniversaries of the past usually consisted of travelling somewhere, fine dining, or even ordering in favourite dishes, usually Biryani. There was this one year where we relished a movie followed by a romantic dinner. This time, we didn’t plan anything. However, the day before, I saw a Facebook post by Sarita Agarwal showcasing different menu items at her Gachibowli outlet. Sarita was one of the Sunrisers Hyderabad fandom cohorts with whom who I shared cricketing emotions. Up when SRH did well, down when they did not. Sharing views and exchanging notes after every game was like a decadent dessert after dinner. More on the IPL experience in a separate post. In jest, I asked Sarita whether Facebook friends are entitled to discounts? She replied, yes, why not. The allure of a discounted offer is truly irresistible. When you get something at a price lesser than standard retail, the feeling of accomplishment is heavenly. So, the decision was made. House of Truly, it would be on Sa
Read more

Ideas From Another Field

-
Image
Applying concepts from one field or a book in another field has been a common pattern in modern technological development. The spirit of antifragile, a recently coined word, has found its way in the implementation of microservices. In the quest to make software programs antifragile, the way forward is to build intelligence into them. A couple of other examples are: i) The law of diminishing returns from economics which applied to parallel computing becomes Amdahl's Law. ii) I surmise that the Agile board in the Scrum methodology is the application of the Hawthorne Effect. Cross-pollination of ideas is one of the mechanisms of innovation. And, as we found out recently, learning transfer is the way Elon Musk follows to become such a prolific technocrat and businessman. My essay ends here.
Read more