Sunday, May 20, 2007

Eagles Vs Plaza

I took a diversion from the already diverted route from Old Mahabalipuram Road to go to my home. While passing through the backyard of perungudi, the normally darkness covered government compound was buzzing with high voltage flood lights. More out of curiosity than interest, I went in. A cricket tournament in full flood lights was going on. It was a match between "Plaza" and the "Eagles" team. I got these names from a local commentator struggling to give a pure tamil commentary. Each team had their own t-shirts, one team in red and the other in blue.

Six separate teakwood flood light stands with about 15 flood light in each surrounded the ground. A stage, a stage audience (!!!) a generator to feed the lights, a commentator to feed the 99% youth audience with the details of the match. It was a tennis ball match. I was expecting to see more fireworks from the batsmen. But, apart from the fireworks from the commentator's mouth, the game was pretty decent. Batsmen were placing the ball better than some of our international stars. Local ballooning did happen from time to time with two of them ending up in fielders' hands. At the time of my leaving, the batting team had scored around 20 runs in 4 overs for the loss of 3 wickets.

The crowd mostly consisted of guys supporting their team. Some even had the team's shirt on. While crossing some of the guys, the smell of liquor flavoured the place. In all, the whole place was lit like one giant fair. I was able to see the lights in the sky from my home.

World cup winners or not, cricket fever hasn't yet slowed down in our country.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi! U have a gr8 piece there. Do keep writing. Are you from St. stephens college delhi by any chance?

Joseph Antony said...

thx for ur comments. And nope, am not from northern part of our sub continent.