And then there was Twenty20 cricket at its explosive best, the latest stress buster for techies and youth.

The crowd at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in India’s IT capital erupted with joy: they drank beer, screamed, danced, applauded, booed and ogled at the scantly-clad members of the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders, known in the US as “the first ladies of football.”

As the Indian Premier League T20 cricket tournament kicked off, many techies did not want to miss the chance, as they shut down their systems by early afternoon.

“Yeah it was tough to get permission and I had to wrap up work much early. And I wanted to watch it from the stadium as it was just for three-four hours. I don’t have to spend the entire day in the stadium. It is more fun than the one-day matches. No seriousness involved, and it was filled with entertainment,” says Sharath G, working in a leading IT company.

“It was a good stress buster. Instead of going for parties, it was good to be associated with our favourite game and movie stars filled with glamour and style,” he added.

“IPL is associated with glamour and fun. We don’t see a lot of cricket. It is very fast. With film stars, it is more associated with style and glamour. Throughout the day we don’t have to bother about the score, which in fact is very distracting. It is very much with the current generation,” says Aparna, another techie, who was present in the stadium to witness the gala event.

The first IPL match, between Kolkata Knight Riders (KR) and Bangalore Royal Challengers (RC), enthused the fans.

“There is a huge difference between IPL matches and matches between countries. The other matches involve passion and patriotism. This is not the case with the IPL. I was sad about the first match in Bangalore, because RC lost. But I cheered KR as my favourite player Sourav Ganguly is the captain. Wel, either way I enjoyed the match,” said Karthik, a software engineer.

Cheering the Knight Riders, another techie Rajesh Kumar, said: “Dada (Ganguly) is with Knight Riders, so we cheer for Knight Riders."

“We don’t really get involved with the team. It is a time pass. We can shift our support to different teams depending on our favourite players,” added Karthik.

However, many supporters of the home team, who were waiting for RCs to strike back were dejected and walked out before the match was over. Knight Riders humbled Royal Challengers by 140 runs.

New Zealander Brendan McCullum stormed past Cameron White's 141 and made an unbeaten 158 for Knight Riders, the highest individual score in any T20 match.

The Washington Redskins, who were outsourced the task of cheering the Royal Challengers, performed far better than the hosts. They even danced to Kannada and Hindi songs.