INDIAN SPORTS
The history of Indian sports dates back to Vedic period. During the time of Ramayana and Mah..
The first season of the Indian Premier league (IPL) commenced on the 18 April 2008 with the final match held on 1 June 2008. It was the debut season and expectations of the people were pretty high and comparisons to EPL (English premier league) were abounded. The competition started with a double round robin group stage, in which each of the 8 teams played a home match and an away match against every other team. These matches were followed by two semi-finals and a final.
It began with the auctions which were held on 20th February 2008 with Mahindra Singh Dhoni winning the highest bid of US$1.5 million followed by Adam Gilchrist winning a bid of US$ 700,000. All the franchises were set up as soon as the auction process was completed after which the wait for the tournament was palpable. This was something new for the Indian audiences who were used to supporting only their country and not teams within the country against each other.
Out of the eight teams in the group stage Rajasthan royals were the toppers with a total of 22 points from 14 matches closely followed by kings XI Punjab with 20 points whereas Deccan chargers were at the bottom of the group. The tournament began with a big bang with a huge score of 158 not out by Brendon Mccullum of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) which the knight riders won with a huge margin of 140 runs which was a lot in T20 standards. After the first match things cooled down for a while as there were not many exhilarating performances or matches but the fifth match was interesting in which RCB beat Mumbai Indians with 2 balls to spare sending a few nervous jolts among the audience. It was a roller coaster ride for many of the teams as their fortunes kept on swinging. Among the other notably important matches Chennai Super Kings beat Delhi daredevils in the last ball of the last over for which MS Dhoni won the man of the match awards for his captain’s knock. Another interesting match was on 21st may between Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians in which Mumbai Indians lost the match by one run.
Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils played the first of the semifinal matches which turned out to be a lopsided affair as Delhi collapsed to a mere 87 all out with the target being 193. It was practically a dud, not what the audience was expecting. The second semifinal was between Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings which was a low scoring match. Chennai just had to chase 112 runs after their bowlers restricted Punjab for such a low score. After two disappointing semi finals the audience got what they were craving for in the final match. It was a high octane match between Rajasthan royals and Chennai. Rajasthan successfully chase down the total of 163 thanks to a magnificent all-round display by Yusuf Pathan who went on to win the man of the match award. Shane Watson was adjudged as the best player of the tournament. The fair play award was won by the MS Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings. The most runs were scored by Shaun Marsh of KXIP who scored a total of 616 runs out of 11 matches. The maximum number of wickets was taken Sohail Tanvir who captured 22 wickets on 11 matches.
It has its share of controversies, ups and a few downs but in the end it proved to be a huge hit among millions of cricket fans of India.
Article Source :
http://www.veethi.com/articles/ipl--review-of-season-1-article-1222.htm