🏏 Watching IPL at home with the whole family is louder than any stadium

Match nights at my place sound like a stadium. And yes, I've been to an actual stadium. Dad owns the middle of the sofa, uncle takes the chair, the rest of us fight for floor space. Whoever holds the remote controls the volume, which is always Dad, and nobody argues. Dinner happens in the hall on plates so nobody misses an over. The arguments start from ball one. Uncle swears the toss decides everything, Dad says only the openers matter. My little cousin ignores both and screams his favourite player's name each time he's on screen. Last Saturday it went to the final over and the whole street heard us when the last wicket fell. Our neighbour knocked and I thought, here comes the noise complaint. He just wanted the score, his TV had died. He stayed for the last two overs and ate half our biryani. Nobody minded. I used to watch alone with headphones and thought it was better. It's not, it feels flat. Mum keeps saying lower the volume after eleven and gets ignored every time. Last week she hid the remote. We found it in the flour tin. Nobody will admit to putting it there.

We eat in the hall during matches too, it's easily the best tradition we have. One rule in our house, nobody speaks in the last over of an innings, not even to ask about the score. My aunt broke it once to ask who wanted more rice and she still hears about it. Match nights beat every other night of the week for us, no contest.

Your uncle's toss theory made me laugh, I know someone exactly like that, same face too. He once refused to watch a whole match because his team lost the toss. They won by thirty runs. He admitted he was wrong, but only to me, and made me promise not to tell anyone. Cricket fans are stubborn people, and it doesn't change with age.

I'll push back on one thing, the stadium isn't quiet, I went last season and my ears hurt. But fair point, the people sitting next to you matter more than the place does.

Ours is a fight about commentary language and it never ends, not even at halftime. Dad wants Hindi, my sister wants English, I'd rather just mute it and read the subtitles. We tried switching language every single over once and it was a total disaster for everyone. Now we flip a coin before the toss and whoever loses has to live with it.

The neighbour dropping in for the last two overs is the best part of this story. Cricket turns strangers into family for ten minutes and then everyone goes back to normal. Our building once had a semi final on the terrace with one small TV and thirty people. Someone brought tea for everyone and nobody remembers who paid for it, funny how that works.

The remote in the flour tin had me laughing out loud at my desk this morning. We keep ours in a small steel box and only Mum can open it, no exceptions. She started that after a match ran past midnight and nobody in the house could sleep. Steal the idea before the next big final, it works better than shouting at everyone.