IPL

Its official now . IPL has been the biggest thing that has hit World cricket since maybe the Kerry Packer series and people who watched it all over the world cherished it . BCCI made awesome profits in the range of 350 crores or more according to newspaper reports , the Franchise concept worked - some of them were trying to draw even in the first season while others were busy sacking their CEOs. There was also a hilarious forward which had the Blore owner , asking people to drink a particular brand of beer he is associated with because he invested a lot of money and his team just wasn't able to perform !

A day after IPL, in the evening ,even my dad felt that he missed watching cricket - which almost resulted in me collapsing from my seat as this was probably the last thing I would expect from him. I truly agree with him though. IPL , as one of the news channels kept saying , threw all the Saas bahu serials out of contention and ironically, even the news channels suffered since people in general were no longer were bothered about the 9pm news but were instead worried about what their favorite city IPL team was going to do in the last 5 overs !

There were very many great moments - McCullum's first day "beltax" century, Akhtar's fiery spell in his comeback match against Delhi, Gilly playing that hurricane knock against Mumbai ( I actually saw this in the airport just before boarding a flight and generally, janta queue up much before the announcement goes by , but this time was different , as they approached the line , they were walking slower and slower so that they don't miss Gilly's batting and yes, he didn't disappoint - Match got over at 11.25 pm mins before we boarded the flight ! ) , a few hatricks , loads of action and drama , a Hollywood inspired first IPL final ( a 1 sec slot was worth 10 lakhs during the breaks during the final !) and Rajasthan Royals !

The Royals - they beat all the pre tournament hype and criticism when people said any team would win except the Royals ! Watching them play was a treat and a great learning to any other team . Led by the "Blonde Bombshell" ( Read Warne) , as Ravi Shastri put it , they just walloped every damn team on the way and won the finals and also the hearts of zillions of cricket fans . For more on this, just type in Royals and IPL in google and you will find crazy number of articles talking about this team!

Finally, if anybody comes back home after work and suddenly says, "who's playing today" and suddenly realises that IPL is over, you will know that he has been hit by what many call the IPL effect ! Next year it will be bigger and better with more money for everyone involved. Finally, who is the loser ? maybe the aam janta who pay up the money to watch the match !!!