ICC World Twenty20: Itni chuppi kyon?

This city has a lot of noise but very little of that belongs to cricket. Considering that there’s a World Cup that’s on and India plays the tournament’s inaugural in the right sense here, there should have been a buzz around the city. But it’s not so at all. There are hardly any posters talking cricket, even less talking the T20 World Cup. By all accounts, its a scaled down publicity era which the ICC has ushered. One would understand why though. Very conversely to the World Cup silence, all hotels here are sold out, and there are way too many of them. Perhaps, the ICC knows that the stands on Tuesday will make all the noise that’s been missing till now.
Not Shivamani but Iqbal this time
Talking of noise,  a little of it could be heard during Team India’s practice session at the VCA Stadium here on match eve, thanks to Vishal Shekhar and his special interest in the World Cup. The Nagpur cricket association arranged for a local brass band called Suyog to play at the stadium during and before all matches. The eight member band has been specially trained to play punjabi beats by Shekhar’s drummer Iqbal Azad. He has flown to all venues before the world cup to train local bands to put the beat back into the game. And as the Suyog band drummed up its dhols on the side of the lush green outfield, who else but Bhajji and Yuvraj Singh were there to give a performance in the middle — doing that perfect bhangra to complement the band and the stands where a motley group of fans clicked away on their mobile phones.
No stars in the sky
Unlike the high profile 2011 50-over World Cup where celebrities of all hues made a beeline for the stadia, this shorter version World Cup comes without any glitz or glamour. Despite the fact that this is the maiden T20 World Cup to be hosted by India, No star of any hue, be it from politics, the corporate world or Bollywood itself will be in attendance when India plays its first match of the tournament here. The only biggie that’s expected on the big Tuesday is Amitabh Chowdhary of the BCCI. Icon Vijay Mallya used to be a regular at such events but with the King of Good Times being on the run no private jet will be landing here to punctuate the corporate box. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Nagpur Revolution

One of the most brutal tales of woman empowerment has been scripted in Nagpur's Kasturbanagar. Tired of suffering rape and terror unleashed by a local goonda, 150 women of the locality caught hold of him in the courtroom, dismembered him, sliced his genitals and stoned him to death. Shielded by the police, the slumlord had left a trail of rape, intimidation and extortion in the 10 years of his criminal career. The rough and ready justice administered to Akku by his victims has struck a chill in the hearts of his gangmen who are now either underground or thinking of alternate careers. Meenakshi Rao meets Nagpur's overnight women heroes who are on a victory trail and daring the goons to come near them Nagpur is otherwise a quiet city, quiet and disciplined. On the crime graph, it takes only a bronze, with Mumbai and Thane doing the more respected (dis)honours for Maharashtra. But, for the past 10 days, it has been celebrating something it never would have dreamt of serenading
Read more

Shotover Canyon Swing: ‘We don't do normal', say Chris Russell & Hamish Emerson

Image
The young duo of Chris Russell and Hamish Emerson has given Queenstown its newest and scariest adventure activity. Hamish talks to   MEENAKSHI RAO   about go at fear, extreme height drops and how their product is unique in the world. Excerpts from the interview: What on earth made you think of such a scary jump and swing? Chris and I (Hamish) spent years reconnoitring rock faces through every inch of the Wakatipu Basin, climbing, abseiling and swinging.  Swinging around on the end of a rope started from a passion for freefalling and jumping off things — we’d set up swings off local bridges to create a buzz ourselves and with our mates. The idea for getting a permanent location to jump off came from mates who enjoyed the rush and thought others would too. Is your product entirely unique or do you have similar things happening elsewhere in NZ or globally? We were pioneers in commercial swinging with freefall. Others have copied us since, but none are set up to provide the
Read more

For Sebastian, home is where nature is

Image
Sebastian Perumpullikadan, a shipping tycoon from Dubai, came into the hospitality industry quite by accident. But his love for Nature and respect for the environment took him headlong into the eco-tourism industry where he is a leading name today.  MEENAKSHI RAO  talked to him at his newly opened coffee plantation resort The Ibnii at Coorg. Excerpts of the conversation What are your views on eco-tourism? Whether we make money or not, my pledge is that we will build only eco-friendly resorts. I am very passionate about Nature. At The Ibnii, as you can see, construction has been done with minimal destruction to flora. For every tree that had to be cut, I planted 100 saplings on the plantation. Every drop of water is accounted for, no food is wasted here and we have invested heavily in setting up a sewage treatment plant on the property itself. Water is recycled for nurturing the landscape. Each drop is calculated. The only water wastage is the amount that gets evaporated
Read more