THE #SAVECSK signature campaign was held outside the Chidambaram stadium in Chennai on 1st August. The suspension of the team did not go down well with the fans and a diehard Chennai fan Saravanan who paints his body yellow rather than wearing the jersey was the one who took the initiative.
There were fans of all ages, young and old showing their support to get their team back in IPL. There were cheers and chants like 'We want CSK' and also chanted the name of their captain Dhoni's name. What they were urging and requesting was 'Bring back my city, bring back my team in IPL!'
Close to 10,000 people, to be precise 9,577, signed the petition. Apart from signing the petition, there were huge white banners put up where fans could write in their messages. The messages and wishes ranged from 'I love Dhoni' to the casual and normal statement 'Chennai Super Kingsku whistle podu'. The one plea out of the many that caught the attention was 'Super Kings includes not just the players, but also the fans. We are a family, please don’t split us! #SAVECSK’ Touché!
When the initiative was started nobody thought that the response and the turnout would be this great. The positive response has now led to an online petition that will be sent around through social media. The message was shared by Saravanan on Twitter; it was good news for the fans who lived outside the city or country to show their support for the men in yellow.
Among the fans were also actors who showed their support like John Vijay, Prabhu 'Buddy' Lakshmanan, Bullet Balaji, Amzath, Karthik Kumar and Sunil Vishnu to name a few.
One of the fans present expressed her emotions that the team deserves to be in the league.
"We want to watch our players in yellow jersey only. There are a lot of our players who have joined other IPL teams, but we still feel they belong to our team. Then how can we watch IPL without Chennai Super Kings? I believe there is no evidence against the players and hence think the team doesn’t deserve to be suspended."
The fans have very well stated their demand and plan not to give up rather take it to the next level! But Chennai Super Kings' fate has already been decided and whether it change after this public outrage, is a tough question to answer.