The atmosphere inside the stadium was electric on Friday night. And large sections of the crowd appeared rooting for only one team — Chennai Super Kings.
An overwhelming majority of the spectators were wearing the ubiquitous yellow ‘No. 7’ M.S. Dhoni jersey. The forced change of CSK’s bastion from Chennai to Pune has not cost the team in terms of crowd support.
In fact, while walking towards the MCA stadium here on Friday evening, we could see hawkers busy with the sales of CSK shirts and caps. And ‘No. 7’ was everybody’s favourite.
Clearly CSK and Dhoni had struck a chord with the locals here. ‘CSK’ was their team.
Driving force
Indeed, Dhoni’s phenomenal pan-India presence is the driving force behind CSK’s enormous popularity.
The CSK management got it dead right when it opted for Pune among the four venues it was offered; the others being Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram and Lucknow.
The biggest factor going in Pune’s favour was Dhoni — during the period CSK was banished — captained the Rising Pune Supergiant in one season.
So when he returned with CSK this time, there was plenty of emotional bonding with Dhoni and his men.
CSK all-rounder Shane Watson said, “It was very sad that matches had to be moved away from Chennai. The atmosphere was incredible there. But here too, we felt at ‘home’ there were several CSK banners, and the crowd support was great.”
The new ‘home’ for CSK, Pune, has welcomed the franchise with both arms.
