The flame of passion...

This picture is all of us :) Pic credit DNAindia.com It is such a pleasure to settle down on your sofa, with a cup of coffee, at 630PM IST daily to watch a game of cricket. To think this will continue for more almost 2 months brings a smile to my face. The best part is watching the game with family and chat about it with friends, all supporting different teams with a lot of banter and fun. It is the start of the massive festival season in India! Each game has its drama, exciting talents, comical errors, cases to use technology better and more importantly a lot of learning. I have tried to summarize a few from the first 4 matches below: Match 1 : MI v/s CSK 1.      I loved it when Dhoni sent Jaddu & Sam Curran before him. He later said that it was all a mind game to intimidate the spinners. However, it was bigger than that for me. I heard on commentary that Sam Curran was Dhoni's pick at the auction. He had told the management that he wanted Sam Curran, no matter what! Now

* Image from insidesport.co The excitement is always sky-high before the start of the IPL. This time, as you can imagine, it will be even higher! In India, we are not used to the cricketers taking a break from cricket. We want to and are used to seeing them play for almost 365 days in a year. In the pre-IPL days, they used to get a break during summer generally and I used to hate it . Then, IPL arrived and took over that cricketing window across the world! This long break because of Coronavirus was unexpected (of course, not the ideal way to get a break) but the players would have loved it! They are fully geared up for the action now and that combined with the fans' anticipation makes this IPL the most awaited one so far, I think! Watch out for the viewership numbers.  A team's performance is usually a factor of team management, core team strength, the preparation, strategy, skills, leadership etc. This year, there are a lot of unexpected factors weighing in that bring a mix of