We love
statistics and attach significance to landmarks…. ~ and swansongs !
In
Chattisgarh - 67 percent of the 29,33,200 voters in the Naxal-affected Bastar
region and Rajnandgaon district on Monday exercised their franchise in the
first phase of assembly elections, where
violence by Naxals who have called for a poll boycott, left a CRPF jawan dead.
Elsewhere, at Rohtak, Padma Shri awardee and legendary athlete Milkha Singh is
expected to flag off the mini-marathon 'Run for the Girl Child' being organised
by the Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak, (IIM-R) on Sunday. Rohtak and
more particularly Lahli made news recently for different reasons.
Sachin
Tendulkar plays his final Test in Mumbai, he will rightly be applauded for his
entire body of work. The 200 Tests, the 51 centuries and the countless memories
scattered like confetti across the world. But like any body of work, it is not
of uniform quality. Some years, like those of fine wines, are better than
others. By the numbers, the two-year
period from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2010 is Tendulkar’s tour de force. He
averaged 75.10 with nine hundreds and eight fifties from 32 innings with top
score of 214. Seven of those hundreds came in 2010 alone, when he made 1562
runs – the most he would ever score in a calendar year – at the staggering
average of 78.10. [this part courtesy :
firstpost.com] ~ we dissect and get enjoyment in little nuggets.
In
earlier decades be it Clive Lloyds WI against the brilliant Gundappa Vishwanath
(97 no) or be it Narendra Hirwani’s debut 16 for … at Chepauk – all had one
thing in common………… the ticket sales would be on a few days before the match –
there will be huge crowds standing in line – and on the day, we used to go very
early in the morning – the first batch would chose the best spot for viewing,
the next group would come with refreshment and food for all – it would be a
carnival watching 5 day test with a rest day………… things have
changed not only in the way games are played – more so, in the manner
the marketing is done and tickets are sold.
Sachin
Tendulkar apart from being the best batsmen has been the greatest source for
marketing …………… the story goes that free
passes for Sachin Tendulkar’s last Ranji Trophy match, largesse from Haryana
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to his political clientele, were freely
traded for cash. Some went for Rs 10,000 apiece. It was just a Ranji match,
which otherwise would have passed off in front of less than hundreds turning
out these days. ~ and the story goes
that the Lahli Stadium emptied no sooner the master took just seven balls to be
bowled by rookie Mohit Sharma.
Euphoria
is already being orchestrated by the media that test at Wankhede specially
arranged – his 200th is his swansong…..
the marketing hype ensures that no
pulp is left in the lemon, even
by Tendulkar’s own exalted standards and are pitching this match as the
blockbuster.
Sure,
the way tickets are sold has changed totally.
KyaZoonga.com, Mumbai Cricket Association's official ticketing partner
claimed to have notched a stupendous 19.70 million hits within an hour of the
opening of ticket sales for Sachin Tendulkar's 200th and final Test match, an
official said on Monday. ~ and the
server crashed ………… leaving millions of fans disappointed. Several cricket fans eager to catch Sachin
Tendulkar in action in his 200th and final Test Match were on Monday indignant
after Kyazoonga.com, which was to sell tickets for the November 14 match
against the West Indies, went blank. The online entertainment and sports
ticketing company was to open its counters at 11 a.m. But the website appeared
to have crashed immediately after and remained inaccessible for the rest of the
day. Denying that its site had crashed, however, Kyazoonga.com claimed
transactions had slowed down because of an unprecedented surge in traffic, with
19.7 million hits received in the first hour alone. The tickets are priced at
Rs.500, Rs.1,500 and Rs.2,500. Frustrated fans gathered outside the Wankhede
stadium, seeking information from the authorities, amid police security. There
were many who travelled overnight to Mumbai in their quest for tickets
expecting MCA to open out counters.
There
is news that out of the 30,000-strong seating capacity for the match at the
Wankhede, only 5,000 tickets have been made available to the public, the rest
being allocated to cricket clubs, government agencies and sponsors. There is nothing left to imagination over
there as to what happens to the rest…..
This is
not the first time for Kyazoonga or Cricket fans…… in Feb 2011, during World
Cup – the website which was the online
partner was found out of place as it crashed unable to bear the traffic. Hanging in cyberspace may not be an entirely
new experience for many of us but this would have more frustrating and
different.
Sachin
attracts crowds to venues, places where he goes – as also websites……… in 2006,
he visited a temple in a small village in the Western Ghats of Karnataka - Kukke Subramanya temple, about 100 KM from
Mangalore. It was to be a private visit to
the temple to perform poojas and seek divine blessings. Even though, he wanted to keep his visit a
secret, the news was leaked and spread like a wildfire. Thousands of Sachin
fans from neighbouring areas made a beeline to Kukke Subramanya to see him - and fans World over started searching for
this temple on the web. As a result, the
website of the temple saw over 17 lakh
hits in a day leading to a server crash.
Getting
back the Ranji match between Mumbai and Haryana was played at Bansi Lal
stadium, Lahli, Rohtak in Oct 2013
~ played in front of capacity crowds –in
the 1st innings it was low scoring match and Sachin remained unbeaten to ensure
a victory – that being his last Ranji appearance ………… there were capacity
crowds.
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
12th
Nov. 2013.
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