It is time for changed loyalties, new friendships and fresh challenges when another edition of the Indian Premier League gets underway in the City on April 9 when Deccan Chargers-Rajasthan Royals match takes place at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium.
Even as some believe there is an overdose of cricket with the 45-day IPL starting immediately after the magnificent World Cup which saw India conquer the world, there are millions of fans who still long to come to the grounds to see the big stars in action.
“Why not? IPL is a huge opportunity to have a glimpse of the members of the World Cup winning team,” says C. Rithwik Reddy, an engineering student of VNR College in Bachupally. “The fact that this is a T-20 format and played during holidays mostly during nights, should be all the more attractive,” says Inkullu Vijayantika, a standard VIII student of Nasr School.
For the Hyderabadis, this summer can be really exciting with the City-based Deccan Chargers wearing a new look and a new captain at the helm.
The familiar and media-savvy Adam Gilchrist (now leading King's XI Punjab)will be missed as Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara swaps his role (he was the captain of King's XI last time) with Cameron White as his deputy.
Chargers may miss cricketers like Gilchrist and Symmonds and even the classy V.V.S. Laxman.
In fact, there is no star value from the local pool which is confined to the likes of Ravi Teja, Arjun Yadav, Ashish Reddy and Akash Bhandari.
The presence of class batsmen like Sangakarra, opener Michael Lumb (England) and J.P. Duminy, hard-hitting Cameron White and the exciting Daniel Christian keen to dominate batting, there is fast bowler Dayle Steyn and Ishant Sharma with left-armer Pragyan Ojha.
The IPL-4 is also a unique edition given the number of players who moved over to the other teams. For instance, both Dayle Steyn and Cameron White played together for Bangalore Royal Challengers in the first three editions and will be together here for Chargers.
“We are familiar about each other's roles. It should be a great experience this time too,” says Steyn.
The stage is set when the crowd at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium will be lustily cheering for their favourite cricketers.
Under the floodlights, see the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Andrew Symonds, Kieron Pollard, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Rohit Sharma (Mumbai Indians), Brett Lee, Yousuf Pathan, Gautam Gambhir (Kolkata), Yuvraj Singh (Pune Warriors) and Virender Sehwag (Delhi Daredevils) play.
The matches schedule in Hyderabad for the IPL-4 is as follows:
April 9 - Deccan Chargers vs Rajasthan Royals.
April 14 – Deccan Chargers vs Bangalore Royal Challengers
April 16 – Deccan Chargers vs Kings XI Punjab.
April 24 - Deccan Chargers vs Mumbai Indians.
May 3 – Deccan Chargers vs Kolkata Knight Riders.
May 5 – Deccan Chargers vs Delhi Daredevils.
May 10 – Deccan Chargers vs Pune Warriors.
