Dear IPL, where are the trees?
As a fellow CSK fan since the inception of this league, I can confidently say that nobody is more interested about the green dot ball initiative than a true #yellove fan. After all, it is our team that has contributed amply in this noble initiative. Unfortuantely, with the bat rather than the ball.
We all have been told for years now, that 500 samplings get planted for each dot ball that’s being played, but the very basic question that needs to be asked is: Where is it being planted? If it is being planted at all. Occasionally we get to see a picture or two but even those pictures happens to be in a pre-existing green zone. Makes me think: Are we trying to wet the water here?
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We all know how these go green initiative works. Basically, the corporates are forced to reforest & compensate the carbon footprint caused by them and their private events which might eventually lead to a catastrophic event if not taken care of. This was played well by the PR team where they converted this act of compensation into an initiative involving the game & it’s outcome. A bit ironical, when you realise that the pitch is made flatter, boundaries smaller & Batsmen or Bats-boys like Vaibhav Sooryavanshi are made to strike the ball like there is no tomorrow. No wonder the last few overs of the innings are called death overs, it is indeeded death to the art of bowling & the green dot initiative.
But my home team, CSK, has taken up the challenge for a few years now; The last time we won the IPL Trophy at PM Narendra Modi stadium to be precise (I don’t mean to imply the known jinx of winning a final at that particular stadium, but making sure that the timelines match.) This season alone, our batters have played enough dot balls to make sure that the entire city could turn into a rainforest without the help of December, yet we don’t see a single change in the number of trees. With such initiatives you’d expect the unfinished grey metro pillars gets accompanied with some greenery but all we end up witnessing is half useful green nets on the top of every major signal where the trees were supposed to be in the first place.
At times when I watchDube’s footwork while batting, it makes me wonder, maybe he is the tree that was planted by CSK for the green dot ball initiative. All this while we never got to launch our bramastra, Thala Dhoni, fondly known as Strawberry farmer who has been aura farming with his cameos with Anirudh music in the background for a few seasons now. Imagine what we could have achieved for Climate Change this year if Dhoni had played & IPL committee had kept it’s promise.
All we simply ask is to promise only what you can deliver, because you are Indian Premier League not the Union Government.
