The message on the poster

Catch That

You could call them the poster boys and girls of the IPL matches — they let their posters do all the talking.

Hundreds of young boys and girls, who come to the IPL matches, make sure they sketch a poster or two and write out bold teasers to flash during the game.

Most of these posters are about individual players — Chris Gayle tops the list.

Sometimes, fans write catchy phrases to grab attention or appear on TV for a few seconds.  Word play, imagery, sarcasm — these people try all the gimmicks they can to get their message across. But a lot of time and energy go into the making of these posters. ‘Metrolife’ spoke to a few people armed with these posters and they said that it’s all in the spirit of the game. 

Some of the classic posters spotted at the IPL matches read thus: ‘Next month is my wedding, please don’t break my nose’; ‘We don’t need any rain or storm, we need only Gayle storm’ and ‘The Gayle storm is here to stay’ — the list goes on. 

Aishwarya and Anusha, both students, made a poster just for Sidhartha Mallya.

Aishwarya, a big fan of Mallya Junior, took paper cuttings of him and made a collage to bring along to the IPL match. “I don’t know if he will be able to see it, but I thought I could try my best to catch his attention,” says Aishwarya. But Anusha adds that it is hard to catch the camera’s attention because of the large number of posters around. “The competition is high and I have seen some really interesting ones, but you never know what the camera will pick up and air on the big screen,” she opines.

Vinay, a student of Jain University, made a whopping four posters, each different from the other. “I also kept a blank chart paper with me. If the team wins, then I will make one at the last moment,” he says. He takes about half an hour to make them, but Vinay points out that the time and effort are worth it if he does get a chance to appear on screen.

“It’s a nice way to reach out to the team and show our support,” he adds.    

Sabitha and her daughter Dhriti, who is a student at Headstart, got together with friends and sketched a poster that was quite different from the rest. It read: “Gayle spare my nose, I love it”.

“I genuinely like my nose and don’t want any injury. But I wrote it in good spirit. I am a big fan of Gayle and was hoping my poster would be picked up by the camera,” says Dhriti.

Deepak, an employee with Accenture, points out, “I always carry a poster because it really adds to the spirit of the game. It takes a lot of effort to think of something different and make them — but carrying these posters gives me a high,” he concludes.