Music, dance, rain and some cricket – A two-day account of the 2023 IPL finale

Wisden India editor Aadya Sharma was present at the IPL 2023 final – both days – in Ahmedabad. Here is an account of the proceedings that went from annoying to absorbing.

This article should have gone up sooner. In the words of Taylor Swift, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me”. It took me days to recover from the madness they call the IPL, from a season that kept you hooked throughout and a finale that had you equal parts agitated and invested, driven by some seriously disruptive intrusions by the rain gods.

When I finally managed to crawl back to my hotel room, my sore eyes just about able to make out five o’clock – morning, that is – on the watch, the limbs had given up, but my mind had not stopped racing. Inside my head was echoing the collective roar of nearly a hundred thousand others, all of whom had shared live the very same moments leading up to the final ball.