The MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai. From the outside, a towering fortress with canopy tents, myriad stairways and entrances - three of them currently out of bounds. From the inside, cricketing heaven. Like the best of venues around the world, it has an ambience of its own - history, tradition, passion, despair. Here catcalls (whistles) are anything but signs of disapproval and the emotions are enjoyed with just a sprinkle of pepper from the humidity gods.
NEW HERO
Chepauk's special night comes alive with new finishing act
Billings scored the third fastest fifty in CSK's history. © BCCI
Then there are the mood setters: the heroes that first put bums on seats and then take them off. And there have been that have done that here - from the Gavaskars and the Viswanaths to the Tendulkars and the Sehwags. The crowd-player bond is strong. And it needed bonds of that kind to fill up Chepauk on Tuesday (April 10) in the face of security threats and socio-political issues enveloping the state of Tamil Nadu.
But as ironies go, it doesn't get better than an MS Dhoni-Suresh Raina partnership producing the quietest period of Chennai Super Kings' homecoming. The crowd, barring a moment of
