Amidst very tight security, the Chennai Super Kings arrived in the Kolkata on Friday to play the final of the IPl 6 on Sunday. With a senior staff member of their team Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI president and owner of CSK, N Srinivasan, being called to be questioned by the Mumbai Police made the situation a little tensed. Captain MS Dhoni was accompanied by wife Sakshi, who was conspicuous by her absence in the first Qualifier in Delhi. Dhoni did have a little bit of smile on his face, but everyone was tight-lipped. No questions from the media were entertained. The team came out of the Airport and headed straight into the team bus and all the way to the hotel.
Tickets at half the price
There's a fruit market close to the Eden Gardens stadium while coming from the New Market area. like in all matches during the IPl, there were flags and T-shirts among other accessories of both teams but there were also tickets on sale. There were the Rs 500 ones being sold for the same price by some youngsters. One could see more than 10 persons trying to sell match tickets just about an hour prior to the scheduled start of 8pm. But, what was amusing was a middle-aged lady and an old man selling the tickets and the man had cut the price of a Rs 400 ticket to Rs 200. While, there might be a chance that they were fake tickets but they had Cricket Association of Bengal seal on them. May be it's loss of interest as the home team is not playing or some other reason as even the thought of a T20 match and that too a Knockout game not going house-full is not what India is accustomed to.
Oh it's all not the same
Sometimes it so happens that certain events under certain circumstances are attractive and pulsating but are not the same in others. When both Mumbai Indians and the Rajasthan Royals took field for the Qualifier 2, they did it on the red carpet. Then, just prior to the start, Mumbai had a pre-match team photo session close to the pitch. And, just when the match was about to start, the giant screen played the customary countdown for the game to begin. Though, there were cheers from the 60 per cent attendance but somehow Eden Gardens, known for its sheer high-decibel level, did not feel the same. Alleged spot-fixing has taken its toll perhaps. The mind cannot help but think "Why all this, it seems fake".