The first match of IPL 2013 on the 3rd of April deserves more than the conventional format of a post. This game of twenty-Twenty in cricket is getting more and more unthinkable as the years go by. The innings scores are getting higher, field placements are getting strategic, new rules crop up every once in a while, and the concept that exists today did not even exist just a few years back. Kapil Dev too, in the extraaa innings just before this first match, remarked that the ‘last or the final overs are now vital and this was unthinkable twenty years earlier.’ Siddhu called the cricketing of these times ‘supersonic’ where speed was the only ‘tonic’ necessary. Such is the cricket that this post wants to talk about… and obviously, it cannot be conventional.
To break conventions, I tweeted throughout the match… and this post is a collection of those tweets. There are couple of interesting re-tweets too that add a bit of masala to the entire dish presented. So run through the tweets and relive the excitement of the first encounter in IPL 2013… the match where the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) meet the Delhi Daredevils (DD) at the Eden Gardens cricket grounds in Kolkata in front of around sixty-seven thousand cricket hungry fans!
Will winning the toss help KKR? 70% IPL Captains opted to field after winning toss… quite an unimaginative decision then!
Sunny calls the Captain Intense decision a ‘play safe policy’… which mean the Daredevils just need to get aggressive now!
I wonder what they mean when they say there is a method in this IPL madness? Isn’t winning always about madness in method?
Siddhu predicts the match going the KKR way and adds: ‘Dilli dur hai!’ Who know the Daredevils might prove him wrong!!
Unmukt Chand faces first ball… gets clean bowled… will he be proud of being bowled out by Brett Lee?
Hey Brett… Unmukt has just emerged from the under-18s… wait until he is a couple of matches old!
First match. Fist ball. First timer Unmukt. Clean bowled! I’m bowled over by the unexpectedness of cricket!
Simon Taufel, the umpire, is now watching Warner and Jayawardhene bat…
67 thousand spectators watching this opening match at the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata…
Isn’t it lovely savouring the Australian hook shot that Warner is so adept at?
Warner edges Narine and gets caught by Kallis at first …slip. #DD 44-2 after 5.5 overs!
Manpreet Juneja is yet another IPL first-timer from #DD #Apnemunde hi nahin, apne selectors bhi daredevils hain!
Delhi Daredevils. The only place in Delhi where a Mahela is safe with so many other guys. #IPL
Delhi Police on exxtra alert… #DD has Mahela who’ll be playing late and then out on its treacherous roads at night! #IPL
Looks like it is the Mahela from #DD set to trounce the knights!
#DD 79 for 4 after 12 overs… means #KKR is probably destined to make a low score and lose!
The #DD middle order defines ‘collapse’ so well in this first match.
The world converges in a single #PepsiIPL match…
It is a ‘stadium of emotions’ in any #PepsiIPL match: cricket set to give us innovative English usage!
Phew! #DD made it to the last ball in the first match… 128 isn’t a brilliant score but should be enough for #KKR.
I wonder what it is that Ashish Nehra mumbles when he gets out, the way he usually does? #DD
The chase, I must say, isn’t going to be as breezy as the breezy atmosphere at Eden Gardens. #DD
#Siddhu calls #Narine a bhool-bhulian! #DD #KKR #PepsiIPL
#DD scorecard has all single digits except for that daring Mahela! Mahela with the mobile number, is it? #PepsiIPL
#DD starts with Yusuf Pathan and a maiden over!
As some #DD fans put it: ‘Will the ‘ek haddi’ bowler Nadeem make #KKR tremble and shiver?
Nehra strikes… Unmukt latches on to the catch! #DD taste blood… Bisla phisla!
It is 68 for 3of #DD vs 75 for 2 for KKR at the half-way stage! It is still anybody’s match.
Did Ashish Nehra slide & sit on the field to wait for the catch to reach? The #DD mentor must teach him diving.
Ek haddi strikes! Chand showing his brilliance as a fielder! Kallis is whistled out!! #DD #KKR
No matter which team wins, I just want #IPL to be entertaining
An unconventional shot… the paddle shot… and Morgan walks back to the pavilion.
(Was it Morgan who got out at this stage? I think I tweeted the wrong name. can anyone point out the correct name?)
The match is at the 30 from 31 balls stage for #KKR to win… or 29 from 31 balls for #DD to win!
Gambhir is lbw after having escaped 2 run-outs in his innings in the match. Great innings by Captain Intense!
I think Andre Russel has the loveliest bowling action… a treat to watch him come running in to bowl! #DD #PepsiIPL
Will this match have a thriller of a final over… or will #DD just hand over the match?
What if Sunil Narine’s parents hadn’t decided to migrate to the West Indies… insightful!
Jaibeer ?@jaibeer1 tweeted: ‘@DelhiDaredevils chal koi nahin aagli baar dekh lenge #apnemunde #IPL.’
They say there is a method in madness in any IPL match… which means that madness there is for sure. This match did shout out that the surest method of losing an IPL match to have your middle order batting crack and splinter like the wicket did when Brett Lee clean bowled Unmukt Chand in the first ball of the first match this season.
Season 6 has begun with a bang!
Brett Lee_IPL_03 April 2013
Arvind Passey
04 April 2013
Featured image: NDTV
