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IPL 3 kicks off with stunner

Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by Sarthak in Sports

The Indian Premier League’s third edition kicked off today with the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai with all eight team captains signing the MCC spirit of cricket pledge followed by a spectacular opening ceremony.

Pop, Reggae and Bollywood enthralled a packed house at the home ground of Deccan Chargers team (Hyderabad having been replaced due to violent protests there).

Meanwhile the first match of the tournament saw a big upset when a seemingly victorius Deccan Chargers were defeated by Kolkatta Knight Ridersby 11 runs. Batting first, KKR lost two wickets in the first over and two more by the start of the sixth. Chaminda Vaas struck with the first and third balls of the match to remove Manoj Tiwary and Sourav Ganguly. Cheteshwar Pujara and Brad Hodge departed to leave the Knight Riders wobbling on 31 for four after 5.1 overs.

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However, England batsman Owais Shah and Sri Lanka all-rounder Angelo Mathews united in an unbeaten fifth-wicket stand of 130, the second highest recorded in professional Twenty20 matches, to take Kolkata to an above-par total of 161.

Although Deccan started at a gallop, with Adam Gilchrist and V.V.S. Laxman putting on 61 for the first wicket in less than six overs, they lost their way after both departed and finished the match scratching around for singles and overthrows. Pace bowlers Ishant Sharma and Charl Langeveldt exploited the damp conditions as Kolkata won by 11 runs.

IPL also created history by being the first major sports tournament to be telecast live on YouTube. All matches of IPL 3 will be broadcast with a 5 minute delay on the popular video sharing site. However, all did not go as planned because YouTube was ‘experiencing technical difficulties’ during the first half hour of the match. Hopefully things will be more streamlined as the tournament progresses.

Sadly, IPL fixtures this year have been set in a bad calendar with most of the international teams busy playing one another. Therefore we shall be seeing a lot more retired and not so great players play bat and ball this season. Already the Indian Premier League resembles a retirement destination of Aussie cricketers. Need I say more?