This is being written just a few hours before the start of the greatest T20 league in the game. Passing by the Chinnaswamy Stadium the previous evening one could see last-minute touches being given to the stadium. It will be a solemn start to this edition of the tournament which coincidentally started at this very stadium way back in 2008. That time Brendon McCullum played an innings to remember scoring 158 with an array of sixes and fours that were breathtaking. It was the perfect start to a tournament about which there were probably an equal number of doubters as believers.
This time around there won’t be an opening ceremony to respect the memory of those young fans of the Bengaluru franchise who lost their lives in a stampede that happened in the rush to congratulate their champion heroes. The BCCI deserves full marks for doing away with the opening ceremony and respecting the memory of those young fans.
The KSCA also deserves kudos for marking and keeping 11 seats unoccupied for those who sadly lost their lives that day. Mention must also be made of the hard work done by the new President of KSCA Venkatesh Prasad, Secretary Santosh Menon and their team in liaising with the Karnataka Government and other authorities to get the go ahead to host the matches. Over the years, the Karnataka State Cricket Association has been, along with the Tamil Nadu and Mumbai Cricket Associations the most progressive and forward-thinking cricketing bodies in India and it would have been a tragedy if the cricket loving public of Karnataka especially Bengaluru had been deprived of seeing and cheering their favourite players in the IPL.
The report about some of the MLAs of the Karnataka Assembly asking for five complimentary tickets for the match set me thinking whether the number of complimentaries for the players has changed over the years. During the time we played the team got 75 complimentary tickets altogether. The squad then was 14 players plus the manager, so it would be easy to divide and give 5 to each member of the squad. However, some of the local players obviously needed more passes so the manager would give 4 to each player and then divide the remaining 15 between the local players and keep some for the hotel management and some others who looked after the players, especially the vegetarian ones. Then for one season which was a busy season and bang in the middle of the Ranji season, I as the skipper of the team managed to convince the Board to give us 100 tickets. We had also reduced the squad to 12 plus the manager so that those unlikely to feature in the Test playing eleven could go and play the Ranji matches and get valuable game time. So with 100 complimentaries it was decided that each player would get 7 and the balance 9 would be shared with the local players. The one to benefit hugely from this was Dilip Doshi in the Kolkata Test match as he was the only player from Bengal and East zone and so got all the extra 9 tickets. Of course, players always took from each other, promising to give the other player their share when the game was in their city.
Today squads are much bigger and so it would be interesting to know how many tickets the squad gets and how that is split up among the players. If it is the same number as earlier time, then the players considering the size of the squads now might be getting two or three each.
Let’s hope this year’s opener at the Chinnaswamy stadium turns out to be as spectacularly brilliant as the first ever IPL game way back in 2008.
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Saturday’s match between RCB and SRH is only the second IPL-opening clash at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium since the inaugural season in 2008
Professional Management Grou