My Favourite Cricket Ad - Anything is Possible

OK. The cricket fan in me has over-powered the intention of resisting this blog entry any further, so here it is!

I'm from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu (TN), but have traveled quite a bit in other states too. Fair to say, TN enjoys its cricket quite as much as most other states, if not more than all. Of course, "enjoyment" doesn't have to translate into Ranji Trophy victories.

School or home, working day or holiday, there is bound to be a large fraction of people in the state with their mind hooked to cricket. We play cricket under the hot summer sun during the vacation in open barren grounds (school ground, on fields, roads, terrace...), we play cricket indoors when it is raining, we play cricket in the classrooms when the teacher hasn't arrived, we play cricket on the video game 24x7 how-so-ever silly that version of game may be (satisfaction only if the computer is defeated at all levels of difficulty).

On a totally different level of seriousness, Trichy, in TN, was the host for the highly honoured "Gopalan Trophy" between TN and Ceylone (Sri Lanka) for ages until it was called off for good.

And in Tamil Nadu, there is one name that is sure to make you stop and look around - Rajinikanth (aka, "Superstar"). He revolutionised cinema in TN, and became the face of TN cine-industry. He was and is a magnet who can draw any volumes of local crowd in one direction. Chennai/TN is the home of Kollywood and we (mostly) love our movies, in which, you know, anything is possible.

And one day, when ICL (Indian Cricket League) entered the Indian play-zone, it had to make a penetrating impact on the cricket lovers. Chennai was selected host city for one of the teams, and it was named Chennai Super Stars (you see the intentions there, don't you?). And then came the advertisement that took the local community by its stride and brought in a quick and thick fan following.

Till date, it remains my favourite cricket advertisement.



(watch it again, and this time, just watch the non-striker, my favourite part of the ad ;-) )

So, you see? Anything is possible. Chennai Super Stars won the inaugural 20-over ICL championship, and the inaugural 50-over ICL championship and continued to perform well in the other tournaments that followed too.

ICL's world tournament was cut short during the Mumbai terror attacks in late-2008, and before it could continue the next October, BCCI made sure they destroyed the league that actually opened the doors to cricketers BCCI shunned and now seemed to hypocritically care for.