DLF IPL 2008 Opening Match: I Was There!

“Ek baat bolu mai, I’ve related to it more like a movie,” said Akshay. 

He further added, “As good as the first half was for batsmen, the second half was equally disappointing. In the first half, there were dramatic shots, the ball going places, crowd up on their feet. The second half was blunt. Wickets kept tumbling and the only positive moment was Dravid’s entry and the reception he got from the crowd.” 

This was Akshay Kukreja’s first witness account of a night no cricket fan can forget. More so not many in India can. Akshay, my friend, and a Bangalorean is one of the 35,000 odd people who watched the first-ever Indian Premier League game in the Chinnaswamy Stadium. 

Photo Credit: Akshay Kukreja

The first thing I asked Akshay when I talked to him about his experience of that night is, what was the thought going in his head in the morning that day. 18th April 2008.

“Okay, so I am recalling my experience. It was a sunny morning since this was mid-April,” Akshay started just like any typical cricket fan would. From the players to the groundsman to the broadcasters to the fans, sunny morning is the perfect sign for cricket.

Before he added anything, I asked him what his age was back then. To which he said, “I was in eighth grade, I had just been promoted.”

“I kept watching the ticket” ,he continued. 

This has all the makings of a Disney movie, doesn’t it? Well, you won’t be wrong in looking at it that way, but this was something different. Rather more original. Set Max presents DLF Indian Premier League. 

“The whole day went by in excitement and curiosity,” said Akshay. 

“I remember news the other night,” he added. “Shah Rukh Khan, Vijay Mallya (who was a free man then, still is) and the who’s who of the entertainment industry have gathered in Bangalore. Tomorrow a cricket match will be played in Chinnaswamy Stadium.”

For me, this was a break-off point. Not because my friend remembered the words of the news report, but the sheer audacity of that news channel to have called it ‘a cricket match’. This was the first game of the Indian Premier League!

But then the journalists were as blank to the concept as the fans, the players, the owners, and the organizers. For us, cricket was about India and Indian players. We were never used to our players squaring off against each other.

“Before the IPL there was another T20 league in India, ICL,” my interviewee referred to the private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, which was pushed to the corner by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Two leagues of the same format were bad for business. And cricket. People would simply get confused. Indian football fans would know.

He further added, “I used to watch it (ICL) and that added to my excitement.”

But that wasn’t the only thing that added to his excitement, much like the rest of Indian cricket fans. 

“2007 kya saal tha na hamare liye,” Akshay started talking about the buildup points to the IPL.

“We were knocked out of the World Cup in March in the most agonizing of ways. Then we went to England and won the historic test series. And then Dhoni was appointed as the captain in September. T20 World Cup win. 6-1 defeat by the hands of Aussies in India. ODI and Test series win against Pakistan in India. And then by the end of the year, the tour to Australia. With the whole monkey gate saga and Indian team taking a strong stand for one of their own,” Akshay narrated without fumbling once. I can feel how proud he is. More of the team than his memory.

Before I could praise his knowledge of the same, he added, “So, I was excited. All six of us who were going to the game were. My brother, four of our cousins, and I.”

And that is where I remember where I was on 18th April 2008. At my cousin’s sangeet. I didn’t watch the first IPL game live. But that story is for some other day. 

As for my lucky friend here, he was about to go through a hundred different yet surreal experiences. 

“2.5 km. That is the distance of the stadium from my house,” he said. “Yet it took us 45-50 minutes to reach that day.”

“And we had to park almost a kilometer away from the stadium. All three roads to the stadium were blocked. Bangalore is anyway known for its traffic,” he added and both of us burst into a laugh. 

But with his tone, I could feel why he was so surprised by the same. This wasn’t the first time Bangalore was hosting a cricket match. It wasn’t Akshay’s first stadium experience as well. This was the first time India was so pumped up for two city teams playing against each other. Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders.

“Many of them were there to see Shah Rukh and the Bollywood stars,” Akshay said confidently.

This was all a very new experience for India. Watching actors performing in the stadium. Light and sound shows were a thing of tourism places. And here it was being played inside a full house stadium for people who bought tickets for a cricket match.

“Wo sab toh Ajanta mai dekhte the, Hyderabad mai Golconda Fort pr dekhte,” my friend talked about a couple of tourist destinations in India that play a light and sound show. Maybe the ones he had been to.

But these were all the elements outside the game that made it a unique experience for those in attendance and millions watching on their television screens. The game of cricket had to take the centre stage. And it did.

“The cheer that Dada and Dravid got when they came for the toss was deafening,” said Akshay. Just listening to him say that gave me goosebumps. These were two stalwarts of Indian Cricket. Two great servants of the game who were leading their sides in this historic, first of its kind game.

That was the time when Indian cricket fans didn’t have to look beyond their team. Although a young Akshay knew his team.

“Steyn, Zaheer, and Kallis. I thought we had a good bowling lineup,” he remembered.   

“But then McCullum started hitting the ball all over the place. And I was like, why aren’t we able to dismiss him. Kya ground Chhota hai? Kya hmare players khraab hai? Sunil Joshi toh laddu daal rha tha uss din,” Akshay said while trying to find reasons as to how Brendon McCullum hit 158* runs off 73 balls. But just like us or even Brendon, he couldn’t find many.

He also mentioned that the crowd praised him when he got his hundred also telling of the fact that the Bangalore crowd is a good sport. Although he did mention later about a verbal brawl between a KKR-SRK fan and a local fan.

“It got heated, but the crowd nearby asked them to sit. Baahar krlena ye, abhi match dekhlo. That was the message,” Akshay described the hot-headed-quickly-dealt with-situation. Although one can hardly believe that the crowd would deal with a verbal brawl that easily in the stands these days. 

What hasn’t changed from that night till today, is IPL’s ability to provide us with high drama cricket. And also, RCB’s collapses. 

“During our innings, all of us were constantly thinking why we were so conservative,” Akshay recalled the emotion inside the stadium. 

“We were getting bored. So, by the 13th over, we decided to leave as we knew if we stayed until the end, the more we’ll get delayed due to traffic,” he added. Not to my surprise at all as he had already told me about the city’s characteristic traffic jams.

Although what did strike me was what he said next.

“We reached home. And the next day was Saturday. It was Kings XI Punjab vs Chennai Super Kings,” he said. 

“Our team had lost. But I was okay. For the next game, I wasn’t emotionally invested. And I enjoyed watching it. We all enjoyed watching it,” he added. 

And hasn’t that been the story of the Indian Premier League? Just as the great Boria Majumdar once said to, “No matter who plays against whom. Every day in IPL, India wins.”