Me smiling with my host at the cricket ground
Okay, relax! I didn’t play, I’m not a cricket player, it was only the first ever cricket match I watched live. And the event was the Rajasthani Samaj Nigeria RPL Season 6. The event is an annual one organized by an Indian community (Rajasthani) of Nigeria and saw the attendance of very important dignitaries including Indian CEOs of some of the biggest corporations in Nigeria and even the High commissioner of India to Nigeria among others. This cricket chaat masala was hosted at the famous TBS cricket ground of Lagos on Sunday 22 Jan 2022. It was a family fun fair, however the cricket tournament was just the forefront event of the gathering. For example aside the cricket tournament, there were tons of other games for both young and old.
- Short Races
- Basketball
- Lemon on spoon race
- Football
- Chess competition ( both young and old)
-
Carrom Pool (you can google this.
) -
Sac race
Invitation and publicity for this event has been on for 3 months plus before the event and major corporations in Nigeria including banks, food and beverage companies among others were sponsors. The Indian community is one of the biggest international communities in Nigeria if not the biggest. And attendees had flown in from all parts Nigeria’s 36 States to Lagos ( note some states like Borno are over 1,500 KM from Lagos and over 20hrs road trip- people hardly travel that distance by road anyway).
Let me take you back to our “precious” cricket tournament.
There were 5 teams listed below.
✓ Chetak riders (CR)
✓ Prithvi royals (PR)
✓ Chamber Challengers (CC)
✓ Rajwada Rangers (RR)
✓ Thambore Tigers (TT)
The cricket game started about 8:00 with TT and RR.
The second game just started between CR and PR when the unexpected happened. The first rain for the year 2023 started about 9:30 and from all indications , it wasn’t going to be just a few showers and surely it wasn’t. Surprisingly I saw several tarpaulins pulled out and all hands were on deck (both the ground support staff and players) to pull the tarpaulins to cover the pitch within such a very short time. For strangers like me, my host MR. Harsh informed that the pitch is the small portion in the center of the main field where the batting and other major activities occur. It is usually dry hard ground with or without grass. The rain continued relentlessly for about 2 hours. And when it was clear that the rain was over, there was massive cheers and clapping by fans. The cheerleaders were out again cheering, the players were getting set, the support staff and officials were strategizing on getting the field match ready again. A hand-controlled hydro sopper was brought in to suck out the water from the pitch. The activity of getting the field back to playing condition took another 300 minutes at least and the game resumed.
In the end the winner of the tournament was PR after defeating RR
Enjoy my short Video
There was food and drinks and loaded of it to be honest.
For me I had coffee and for breakfast
And Puri bhaji, Rice and pickle for lunch.
I have a photo link for your enjoyment.
from going behind the wall, taming the tiger and working with only his upper arms. Those guys were… Awesome