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Sunday, 18 May 2014

Blogadda & Starsports - Cricket Crazy Pepsi IPL Fans

Hi Guys, 

It's a real story where I am planning to watch my first ever live cricket match in a stadium. It was the 8pm match and the fun & excitement of watching an IPL match live in Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium, New Delhi was immense. It all started when a friend of us got us some VIP tickets worth Rs 1500 each in the second season of Pepsi IPL. 

The first season finale, I watched at a friend's place on his big LCD TV and on an inverter as electricity was a big problem in Gurgaon that day. We switched off all the lights and fans to keep TV and TATA sky running to watch the match till the end of last ball. We even ordered food which I don't think ever reached our home and there I was without food and without electricity watching Rajasthan Royals win and life the cup. 

Coming back to the second season, we started building stories about going home early (for some emergency work etc) in office a week before the match day as we need to reach Delhi by 630-700 to reach and take our seats in the stadium. For the same we need to leave our Gurgaon office around 5pm whereas in general we used to leave by 730pm. I still remember it was the match between Delhi Daredevils and Deccan Chargers. We left office early somehow and kept driving my Maruti 800 in the left side because as per our friend that's the lane you should keep your car in case you want to reach on time. It helps you bypass a lot of traffic. Anyhow, he was a daily commuter and we were left stranded many a times and he kept waiting at regular intervals to catch up on us. I also didn't knew of the way to the stadium. 

We reached Daryaganj and parked our vehicles there and ate some snacks. We walked to the stadium with full enthusiasm. We bought these big noise producing horns along with the flags of the Delhi Daredevils. As we passed the security, and reached our seats. They were normal chairs covered with white clothes. Everyone was sitting and policeman came and took my horn as I started blowing that and kept it with themselves. My friend hid his whistle and horn from those policemen. He was a son of an IAS officer so he knew some tricks of the trade.

The match started and we were jumping with joy on our chairs and again policeman came and told us to stay on our seats. That was hampering our joys and spirits a lot. I cursed my friend for getting VIP tickets whereas people in stands with Rs 500 tickets were not only dancing but also were closer to the cheerleaders. They have all the whistles and horns to blow. There was no restriction on those stands. We made a promise to each other that never we are going to again watch Pepsi IPL on these corporate white chairs. 

Meanwhile, we kept our promise and replaced our next two matches VIP tickets with someone having stand tickets. I don't know how many lies and stories we built in office to go home early to reach stadium before time.

I loved waiting in the rain for the match to start  between Delhi Daredevils vs Kolkata Knight Riders and it took me some days to recover from cough and cold.  I really came across the Cricketing spirits of people from all age groups, women and children alike when they were all drenched in rain and still waiting for the match to start. It was the time when I really saw the whole KKR team as they were entering the bus and I was just standing next to the same by chance. It was really great to see Saurabh Ganguly from a feet distance.

Pepsi IPL is a craze and it's my own story. Though I consider myself not the biggest and the craziest fan of cricket, but as Cricket is in our Indian blood and it makes us all feel great when we see our team win. Starsports.com has really introduced some of the features for people who are outside the country to watch the matches live as well with lot of features we always wanted. I really loved to watch the Action replay to decide on the LBW, runouts even before third umpire raises his fingers. 

We can even see the Deferred match with a 5 min delay in full HD quality without being afraid of being attacked by spam and viruses using some unauthorized streaming websites. I am really enjoying all the matches on the website as and when I can't see them on TV at home. 

I love Cricket and the format of the game which can truly be enjoyed in one of your nearest cities and IPL play grounds. Go for it! Gayle is coming for batting while Dale Steyn has the cricket ball in his hands & Dhoni is wicketkeeping.

This post is a part of  <a href="http://starsports.blogadda.com" target="_blank">Cricket just got better! Activity</a> by <a href="http://www.starsports.com" target="_blank&quot;">starsports.com</a> in association with <a href="http://www.blogadda.com/" target="_blank">BlogAdda.com</a>.