Mumbai: The start of the Indian Premier League 2022 also saw a brilliant gesture by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) officials on Saturday, as BCCI felicitated the Tokyo Olympic medallists, Neeraj Chopra, Lovlina Boroghain, and the Indian men’s hockey team represented by Manpreet Singh.
This year, no opening ceremony was held before the CSK vs KKR IPL 15 match. It is the fourth year in a row that no IPL opening ceremony has taken place. The last time an IPL opening ceremony was held was in the year 2018.
This year BCCI felicitated Tokyo Olympics medalists. The ceremony took place before the start of the opening game of the IPL 2022 between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
Neeraj, who clinched a gold medal in javelin, received a reward of ₹1 crore from BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah, while other office bearers were also present during the event. Apart from that, Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist boxer Lovlina Borgohain, who was also present at the stadium, received a cash prize of Rs. 25 lakhs.
Champions Honoured! 👏 👏
BCCI felicitates India’s Olympic medalists at #Tokyo2020@Neeraj_chopra1, @LovlinaBorgohai and @manpreetpawar07
#TATAIPL pic.twitter.com/AbniKtxxEr— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) March 26, 2022
While the Indian men’s hockey team was rewarded with a cash price of Rs 1.25 crore, who won a historic bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, skipper Manpreet Singh was present to receive the cash prize from the BCCI on behalf of the team. The men’s hockey team had ended country’s 41-year wait to win a medal in the marquee event.
Talking about the opening match, KKR have dominated the proceedings and scalped 4 early wickets. CSK began on a sour note, as Umesh Yadav removed both openers Ruturaj Gaikwad, for a duck and Devon Conway for 3 runs.
While MS Dhoni hit a half-century to revive CSK from early wickets and took them to 131/2 in 20 overs, KKR openers Ajinkya Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer gave a strong start to KKR, as KKR registered a six-wicket victory over CSK with 9 balls to spare.
