Chennai Super Kings beats Mumbai Indians

It has been more than 2 decades since I have been to a Stadium to watch a cricket match live, the last time was during my School Days that too only once and I remember it vaguely. So yesterday when I went to MA Chidambaram Stadium (Chepauk, Chennai) with my son to see the match it was pure fun. I didn’t want to go through the parking hassles so I left my car in a relatives house in Royappetah and went to the stadium in an Autorickshaw – a wise decision that helped us to reach to our seats by the start of the match at 8 PM. The atmosphere was dynamic with popular Tamil film songs playing for every 6 runs, 4 runs and during breaks. The stadium was packed with people everywhere – all were enjoying themselves, cheering the entertainment below by waiving, dancing, playing music & whistling. We got good seats in Gate 13 (T-3) area which was right in front of the pitch and with an excellent view.

Pitch Setup in the break – Chennai Super Kings 23 April 2008 Match

The match was played between the home team “Chennai Super Kings” (owned by India Cements & captained by M.S.Dhoni) and “Mumbai Indians” (owned by Reliance Industries and captained by Harbhajan Singh in absence of Sachin Tendulkar).  My home team “Chennai Super Kings” won the match by 6 runs which was largely helped by the superb batting performance earlier by the pair of ML Hayden (Australia) and Suresh Raina (UP, India). Captain Dhoni came in during last few overs but entertained the crowd with his few hits to boundaries.

Everything was great during the match, except for the main scoreboard being updated poorly and for the hot Chennai summer weather. After few overs of second innings it was getting late and becoming unbearably hot, so we had our dinner in the MCC club below and returned home to watch the remaining overs in the comfort of Air Conditioning in our house:-). Will I do it again, certainly “Yes” for another IPL/T-20 match but next time not during the summer.