IPL 2018: Chennai Super Kings returned, roared and walked away with the trophy

Fans were eager to watch their team Chennai Super Kings back in action.

Chennai Super Kings with their third IPL title | IANS

Thesaurus may give you the meaning of 'patience' in few words, but it took me 90,633,600 seconds of wait to understand the real meaning of it. During May 25, 2015, to April 7, 2018, I passed intermediate, got a girlfriend, grew facial hairs and was about to graduate. But the patience was dying as the wait wasn't for the girlfriend, it was for the team which had control over my emotion even before I knew former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, could actually speak. Life, the teacher, wasn't finished with teaching patience and I had to wait for the happiness because the chapter of 'delight' was only after it.

The days of April-May in 2016 and 2017 were tough to endure. Not because it was way too hot during this time, but the team Chennai Super Kings who used to make the set of eleven players in the opposition feel the heat was missing. Watching IPL in those two years for Super Kings' fans was like fishing in a waterless pond. Was it tough to watch others win? No, it wasn't. What really onerous was watching them win without battling Chennai Super Kings. 

I even tried to attach my emotions with a new team. But it didn't happen as if CSK owned the sentiments. You can't fake loyalty. It comes from inside. Just like me, I believe the other Super Kings supporters had to stick to individuals for a reason to back an IPL team. Most of the fans were divided between Gujarat Lions and Rising Pune Supergiant, but the results of those teams may not have affected the fans as their hearts were already with CSK. 

What made the fans eager for the return of Chennai was the ill-treatment their 'Thala' MS Dhoni got from Pune franchise. The owner of Supergiant wanted the lion to attack by keeping him in the cage. Searching for the king of a jungle by keeping the lion in the circus doesn't make sense. Dhoni was doubted by the owners and the comeback of Chennai Super Kings was no more about the 'return of lions', it was now the 'return of pride'. There was no crown on the king's head, which was very unusual. The crown wasn't handed over by the king himself, it was snatched away. The disgraceful treatment of Dhoni made the fans miss CSK more than ever. 

After the IPL 2017, if I was a 7-year-old kid and didn't know counting after thirty, I would have learned it just to find out the exact days left for CSK's return. The countdown had started and brain was already busy imagining the day when men in yellow would walk in.

Time passed, it always does. But when you wait for something it passes as slow as the third umpire making his decision in an IPL match.

The day finally arrived when the 'Yellove' was in the air after Chennai Super Kings returned to IPL. Mind you, the attachment which started because of one man, Dhoni, turned into a connection with the team. You can picturize CSK fans like villagers in the movie Lagaan waiting for the rain. We could finally see the black clouds, it was team Super Kings coming out in yellow for the first time in 1049 days. 

But the rain? We had to wait another 50 days for it. Oh yes, and it was not just return of a team. It was one of the strongest IPL franchise making a comeback. Do you want to win the race? Here is one more hurdle, probably the highest of all. They proved it yet again in IPL 2018.

The team was rightly termed as 'Chennai Senior Kings' after the IPL auction. You think it's wrong? I think it's right because what the 'seniors' did with other 7 teams, especially the table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad was no less than ragging.

After seeing a lot of ups and downs the chapter of patience came to an end and I was ready for the new chapter of happiness. The team and especially the man who went through a lot, MS Dhoni was finally lifting the title. It took us 7 years to see all four together; Dhoni, yellow jersey, the IPL trophy and that priceless smile.

The lion remains the king of the jungle if you let him stay in the jungle, his territory, and not the circus. He may not hunt down the deer, his target, every time while chasing, but that doesn't force him to turn into a vegetarian. Once a lion, always a lion. 

 
 

By Sihyeu Singh - 29 May, 2018

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