At half past six Wednesday evening the first ball was bowled in the IPL7 at Abu Dhabi and the UAE become the second nation after South Africa to host the world’s most extravagant cricket carnival.
For many of us who grew up watching that incredible Sharjah cricket experiment it was a slice of yesterday once more, with a lot more garnish.
Tonight we’ll see you at Sharjah. Be there. It is party time. Nostalgia certainly got a bit of a surge as one stood on that hallowed ground earlier in the week. This is where in 1981, the Gavaskar XI took on the Miandad XI and literally set the ball rolling. It was here that Javed hit that famous last ball six against India. Tendulkar tore the rafters with back-to-back centuries against the Aussies in the midst of a sandstorm.
Imran Khan became the lion of the sport. We also had our other legends in those early years. Viv Richards, Courtney Walsh, Wasim and Waqar, Allan Border, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Ntini, Kapil Dev, Herschelle Gibbs, Ian Botham, Keppler Wessels, Rahul Dravid, Jayasuriya, Kumble, Sangakarra, Mahela, a list as long as your arm and only just begun.
The iconic Sharjah stadium brings back memories of days when the media room had a wire strung from one end to the other so that photographers could dry their wet negatives with laundry clips. No one was allowed to go near them as they guarded their property with a ferocity that would have made Horatious proud at his bridge. Reporters wrote on tired old portable Remingtons (laptops of the day) streaks of ribbon ink on their fingertips.
The most important commodity was paper and it was always running out. One person was in charge of just refilling the trays. There were no mobile phones and journalists queued up for the landlines. The telex clacked away endlessly, punching a symphony of holes in tape paper like Beethoven gone crazy, creating its own pattern, words spilling into other countries as we marveled at the progress of science.
Every color photo had to be sent for separation and it took most of the day, which was a speedy service specially arranged for the match days courtesy a motorcyclist dispatch rider. Rolls of film and even flashbulbs were kept in plentiful supply.
We had carbon paper and paper clips and pins and many a journalist wrote in long hand with ballpoint pens especially those representing non-English language newspapers.
Some of those still young at heart writers are here again, enjoying a hi-tech media facility in three stadiums that we had not even conjured in our minds in those early days. They are probably secretly missing their typewriter days when security was just the guy at the door from whom you asked directions.
So much had changed by the time Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President of UAE, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai inaugurated the Dubai Cricket Stadium on March 26, 2009. A spanking new stadium, a media room that had state of the art equipment, HD TV screens and silent mode laptops that made work so much easier. It was a great night with Pakistan playing Australia to a capacity crowd in the ‘Ring of Fire,’ a label given the stadium for its extraordinary lighting system.
Five years prior to that in May 2004 the $22 million Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi was opened and it staged its first first-class match when Scotland took on Kenya in the Intercontinental Cup that November.
Arguably the most impressive playing field in the world it has no pavilion per se but a stunning ambience whether you are lolling on the grassy banks or the two sweeping stands. You have seen that magnificence on TV and you know this is something else.
For the next fortnight there will be new lions in the circus maximus. Virat Kohli, Dale Steyn, Chris Gayle, Shane Watson, MS Dhoni, Brendon McCullum, Mitchell Johnson, George Bailey, the tried and the tested. And then the young ones, out to make a name and be someone and not be afraid, for once in every lifetime comes a chance like this in a place like this.
Grab it.
