If you happen to be an Indian Premier League (IPL) fan, it is possible that you are familiar with the name Saravanan Hari, or at least his body painted yellow avatar.
Saravanan, a member of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) fan club Whistle Podu Army, redefined ‘Yellove’ when he started smearing himself with the colour on matchdays in 2013. The practice, which he has kept up till date, has always managed to catch the eyes of photographers and fans in the grounds.
On Wednesday, however, Saravanan was one of the many CSK supporters at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad who were allegedly not allowed to carry team flags for the side’s match against 2018 runner-up Sunrisers Hyderabad.
As it happened
According to a flurry of tweets, besides flags, fans were being prevented from carrying “anything yellow” within the stadium. Some fans such as Vivek Pratap Singh made their displeasure known.
Saravanan, who returned to Chennai on Thursday, told Sportstar , “I had been to the match as usual, in yellow body paint and with flags and charts. The entry was through Gate-8. No one stopped me at the outer gate, but the security staff at the inner gate asked me to wash my face, dump all CSK flags and caps.
“When I asked why, said that they were just following instructions. We also spotted flags, charts, caps and some merchandise lying in a heap at the side as if it was garbage.”
But finally it was a group of Sunrisers fans who backed him up. “Some six SRH fans came in support asking the security guy about what harm could showing support for a particular team with flags and all possibly bring. After a while, they let us in,” said Saravanan.
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