Now that the Deccan Chargers (may God bless Gilchrist and his cronies) have won the coveted IPL trophy, I thought that we would move on to other sports - F1 for a change. Well, not only was I proved wrong, the ancient Polo Club (aka MPC Gymkhana) in Baroda has now come up with its own version of the IPL. Called the Polo Premier League (PPL), there are eight teams here that have been sponsored by companies (mostly small, medium enterprises). It's like doing a Mallya on a much smaller-scale. The owners don the team robes and dish out flashy slogans. The teams include Chhani Superheroes, Racecourse Royals, Dandiyabazaar Devdevils, Manjalpur Barodians, Makarpura Chargers, Kings XI Polo, Kareli Baug Knight Riders and Alkapuri Challengers.
I went for the Chhani Superheroes versus Racecourse Royals match yesterday - again in true IPL style this was placed under the lights on a section of the huge Polo ground (no, we don't see horses there anymore). The match started at 9 pm and went on to 11. - twelve overs each side instead of 20. Chhani managed 68/4 with captain Nayan Mongia (remember, the former Indian wicketkeeper?) while Royals managed to outdo them with eight wickets amidst a volley of fours and lots of cheering from the crowd. The monotonous Gujarati-Hindi commentary was punctuated with fight between players from both sides that was finally resolved by Nayan Mongia. My heart went out to Mongia though. One, he has to play in an obscure intra-city tournament with a tennis ball after serving years in the Indian cricket team and two, he has to keep wickets without gloves (ouch!). If only he were as suave and dashing as Ajay Jadeja, he would have made it to the panel of the television cricket experts.
I went for the Chhani Superheroes versus Racecourse Royals match yesterday - again in true IPL style this was placed under the lights on a section of the huge Polo ground (no, we don't see horses there anymore). The match started at 9 pm and went on to 11. - twelve overs each side instead of 20. Chhani managed 68/4 with captain Nayan Mongia (remember, the former Indian wicketkeeper?) while Royals managed to outdo them with eight wickets amidst a volley of fours and lots of cheering from the crowd. The monotonous Gujarati-Hindi commentary was punctuated with fight between players from both sides that was finally resolved by Nayan Mongia. My heart went out to Mongia though. One, he has to play in an obscure intra-city tournament with a tennis ball after serving years in the Indian cricket team and two, he has to keep wickets without gloves (ouch!). If only he were as suave and dashing as Ajay Jadeja, he would have made it to the panel of the television cricket experts.
1 comment:
haha, I chuckled so hard at this. Are there any websites covering this? Any details on other players?
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