IPL --> Ultimate Entertainment Guaranteed - Day 1!!!

The Indian Premier League started off with a bang with some amazing visual treat which was short and simply superb!!! Not to forget the Cheer girls who were too hot too!!!The Royal Challengers proved to be amazing hosts for the big event!! So, the inaugural match between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders started off with the Bangalore captain Rahul Dravid winning the toss and electing to field first.

The Knight riders innings got underway in a silent manner as Praveen kumar bowled a good over to start with costing just 3 runs. But, then, this was only the start of a mighty massacre. What followed in the next 19 overs was a bat swinging hard at anything and everything that came on the way and it belonged to the big hitting kiwi Brendon Mccullum!! He proved to be the man for T-20 when he hit all bowlers around the park and outside it. The other batsmen did their job as Ganguly, Ponting, Hussey and Hafeez, all playing their part scoring at a run a ball. The bowlers were shown scant respect as all bowlers were slain by the marauder. McCullum finally ended up unbeaten on 158 of just 73 balls. He fired in 9 4's and as many as 14 6's to round off the massive assault!!! At the end of the innings, the Bangalore Royal challengers were left clueless of what they had witnessed in the last 1 hour. So, the Kolkata Knight riders ended up amassing 222-3 in the 20 overs. King Khan was a happy man!!!

The Bangalore Royal Challengers in reply, were no match for the accurate bowling by the Knight riders' new ball bowlers. Ishant Sharma and A Dinda bowled with great heart and rightly so, the Royal challengers were left struggling at 26-4 in a short span of time. Dravid, Kallis, Kohli and Jaffer could do nothing in this pressure run chase as all of them ended up with meagre scores. But then after a brief battle by Boucher and White, the procession resumed again with Akhil,Boucher and White ending up miserably. Then, the tail could do nothing but to follow suit as the Bangalore Royal challengers' royal challenge ended up in such a miserable fashion. The Royal Challengers were folded out for a paltry 82 with McCullum fittingly taking the final catch of the match. Agarkar was the pick of the bowlers with 3 wickets and was ably supported by Dinda, Ishant and Sourav. So, finally, Kolkata Knight Riders won by 140 runs which is simply huge in T-20 cricket.

Positives: The positives of the game was undoubtedly Brendon McCullum who proved to be the difference between the 2 teams. His swashbuckling innings took the game away from the hosts. Apart from him, the bowlers proved to be clinical and accurate enough for the Kolkata Knight riders.

Negatives: The big negative for the Bangalore Royal Challengers was that they didn't possess a T-20 match winner in them. One batsman who could single handedly take the game away from the opposition. One batsman who could destroy the bowlers. I don't think Jaffer is a right choice for T-20 arena. I think, in the further games, the royal challengers could do well to pick some young guns who could fire in all cylinders rather than picking a team which lacks power and specializes only in experience and timing.

Overall, a treat to watch but would have been better if the Royal challengers had given a better fightback!!! Great start to the new revelation in cricket!! Indian Premier League!!