All the excitement over the IPL (Indian Premier League) finally having a new winner on Tuesday will surely be dampened by the way the Qualifier Two match at Ahmedabad played itself out, spilling over till 1.30 am on Monday.
Tuesday’s final between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Punjab Kings (PBKS), if it comes off at all, will also be staged at Gujarat’s mammoth Narendra Modi Stadium, the pride and joy of the government.
Sunday’s match in which PBKS pulled off a major upset over Mumbai Indians (MI), largely thanks to a barnstorming knock by their captain Shreyas Iyer (87 not out), was at risk of being abandoned without a ball being bowled due to heavy showers. Fortunately for the patient crowd, the rain petered out in time, and the ground staff did a grand job in allowing the match to run its full course of 40 overs. If not, PBKS would in any case have reached the final as they finished ahead of MI in the league stage.
The irony of heavy rain forcing the match to start more than two hours after its scheduled time of 7.30 pm and ending at such an unearthly hour was not lost on cricket fans around the country, particularly in Kolkata. Sunday’s match, and the final as well, were to be staged at the iconic Eden Gardens since, as per IPL rules, the holders of the title, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), get to host the final.
The sudden halt of the IPL when hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan and the subsequent postponement of the last leg of the tournament meant these matches would now be scheduled perilously close to the monsoon, which in any case has arrived much earlier than expected this year, throwing life out of gear.
But the IPL council, headed by Arun Singh Dhumal, son of the former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, and brother of former BJP union minister Anurag Thakur, deciding to shift the two crucial games from Kolkata to Ahmedabad due to their claims of imminent rain in the West Bengal capital, has badly backfired, especially if the final is a washout.
It is no surprise then that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress, as well as state sports minister Aroop Biswas, have raised a hue and cry over Kolkata being denied the hosting honours. The city has not seen rain for the past few days, while Ahmedabad is still under heavy cloud cover. Biswas, in a statement released late on Sunday evening, has claimed the shift was more for political reasons rather than the weather, Ahmedabad being the bastion of the ruling party.
Whatever be the case, cricket fans will be hoping for a dry day today in Ahmedabad as a new champion is crowned.
