Posts Tagged ‘ipl’

Ipl Tickets Rage

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Do you love cricket? Is it a second religion for you? Do you enjoy watching cricket and do not leave any chance of going to stadium to watch your favourite stars in action? If this is the case with you too, you would definitely understand my pain and sorrow.

I am a cricket lover who has always followed all sorts of matches, irrelevant of the teams or formats. I can even watch the retransmission of matches that were played played a decade back between some minnows.

My excitement was uncontrollable when I figured out that my office was closed on the day of the finals of IPL 2010. Thus started my journey for getting tickets for the finals which in start seemed very rosy, but turned out to be one full of thorns as time passed.

I specially took a day off from my office citing stomach infection as the reason. I wanted to devote the day for purchasing the tickets and for celebrating after that. My boss, who knew about my love for cricket doubted me when I said I was down with stomach infection. His cross questioning was worse than the one done by FBI or CTU. It was not a big deal for someone like me who has a habit of lying and bluffing. He got convinced and granted me leave. In fact he send me a get well soon text too which convinced me that I indeed am a good bluffer.

My hunt for ticket started with calling some friends who like me were cricket fanatics. Though everyone denied having tickets with them, am sure a few of them were lying. As I was determined to go to the stadium I started my journey to its booking office. What welcomed me there was a long queue, probably longer than any I had ever seen in my life. It was longer than queue for tickets of a blockbuster movie and longer than that for the ration lines. It seemed entire Mumbai was out there to get tickets.

After two hours of standing in the queue it seemed it moved just millimeter ahead. Soon came the news which I was dreading. There was an official announcement that said all the tickets had sold out. There were girls who started crying and guys who were angrier than a Spanish bull. These emotions were of no use as the officials didn't get influenced by it.

After a lot of begging they told there were a few left in the second stadium which was at the other end of the city. Within seconds that place was deserted as all of us ran to get those tickets. Struggling for four hours in Mumbai traffic is nothing less than an accomplishment. After achieving this accomplishment when I reached the other stadium I realized that it was totally empty, this meant there were no tickets.

A couple of days back I found out that there are many corporates which have bought these tickets and are using contests and other marketing gimmicks to give away these tickets as prizes. I hunted for these corporate and tried finding out what the contests were.

Out of the few I searched about I found the one which was started by GoJiyo as the most exciting one. This new online gaming portal has asked the users to make profiles and invite friends. The one whose invites would result in maximum profiles would win. I have send invites to many.

Check out the official GoJiyo website, Know more about the IPL Tickets Contest

IPL 3 Is Back – Are You Ready?

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

If you you enjoyed the glamour & excitement that came along with the Indian Premier League & are an ardent fan of the modernized cricket - Then you have a reason to cheer about. The much awaited IPL is back to make the country go crazy in 2010.

There are 97 players who have registered for the IPL 2010 auction. The list of players includes a maximum of 26 players from Pakistan, 17 from Sri Lanka, 12 from South Africa, 9 from New Zealand, 9 from Australia, 8 from West Indies, 8 from England, 2 from Bangladesh, 2 from Zimbabwe, 2 from Canada, 1 Ireland and 1 from the Netherlands. The players will be listed in the January 19th auction if the franchises express interest in them. Last year in 2009, out of 100 that registered 50 were in auction.

Several individuals and companies have shown a growing interest in owning IPL teams, such as actors Ajay Devgan, Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt, and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

Bidders will be offered a choice of 8 to 10 cities that can be made their home team venues and they will be allowed to bid for any number of cities. The highest two bids will be chosen and companies will use the name of that city as their home base and sport their team brand.

The final schedule of IPL 2010 which is to be played in India rather than an international location has been announced. The first match will be held between the defending champions Deccan Chargers and the Kolkata Knight Riders. The IPL 2010 will begin on 12th March and the final match will be on 25th April, 2010. A few new venues - Vishakapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala have been added apart from the existing 8 home venues of each of the teams. This time no new teams will be added but new players including the former ICL players will be available for auction for IPL 3.

Initially, the craze started when Celebrities like Shah Rukh khan & top Industrialists like Mukesh Ambani participated in the auction and successfully won the bids for owning franchises in the Indian Premier League. The highest amount in this auction was for the Mumbai team. This team was successfully bid for an astonishing amount of $111.9 million or Rs. 503.5 Crores by Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani. The next highest was for the Bangalore team which was successfully bid for $111.6 million or Rs. 502.2 Crores by the liquor king Vijay Malaya.

This huge amount of money was never seen in the history of cricket. The prize money announced was three times the prize money of a cricket world cup. IPL has managed to squash everything in its way & create history in the world of cricket. This is the main reason why the cricketers from all around the world are trying to make their place in the Indian Premier League.

Cricket is considered to be more like a religion in India than just a sport. And the God of cricket is here. So it's going to be yet another season full of enthusiasm, excitement, glamour, & fun. The pre- IPL craze says it all. It is going to be a success story all over again. So gear yourself up and get ready for IPL 2010. You surely wouldn't want to miss it, would you?

Want to know more about Shane Warne & Saurav Ganguly? Stay tuned for more acton & fun.