A thunderous roar greeted cricketing legend M. S. Dhoni when he made his first appearance at the venue on Friday evening before the match, walking across to join his teammates for a short stint in football and later when he walked with the bat with just three balls left in the Chennai Super Kings innings against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL match at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium here on Friday night.
Not the kind of ‘brief stint’ at the crease the vociferous crowd was on its feet looking for a performance from one of the all-time greats of the sport.
But, that is sport, often throwing up moments which the fans would love to forget. It was obvious, most of them like Sreevasthav Gubbula, a software engineer in Accenture, were waiting for those fireworks from Dhoni.
It is not that Dhoni didn’t do it was just not having the opportunity to do!
But, one thing for sure, as long as Dhoni dons the CSK colours, one factor which can be constant is that every venue where the team plays, it would be a ‘home game’ for the team, given the kind of popularity he enjoys.
For their part, the fans, clearly brushing aside some familiar discomfort as they made their way into the stadium, particularly those who came through Gate 4 where they had tough time before the start of the game, they still seemed to still enjoy the whole atmosphere.
And, as always, the focus often shifted to the VIP galleries what with Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy who saw the match for a while, seen chatting with film star ‘Victory’ Venkatesh and Megastar Chiranjeevi also making his presence felt, said to be the first-ever IPL experience for him.
No doubt, the fans had their moments of joy when the likes of Shivam Dube for CSK and Abhishek Sharma launched into some massive hits clearing the fence often.
