Cricket Anyone????

This post was actually supposed to go up yesterday....lekin was very tired....hence a day late......anyways read on

When I came to America in the fall 2001, I least expected cricket to be a sport played so eagerly by the 'desis' there.......I had my own ideas....where are people going to find a pitch...even if they have a ground will anyone go through the process of preparing a pitch there....is there a source to get cricket equipment in the U.S..... but I was pleasantly surprised........a small city like Akron, Ohio had its own team since 1994 that played in the Midwest league, a cricket tournament organized in a very professional manner with its own website up to date with statistics and scorecards of all games played.........teams from the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia played in this league

I was what practically every guy from India is.....a galli cricket player where the ball is usually a tennis ball or a rubber ball or a cricket tennis ball "( they are called MRI balls after the company that makes them)....and my whole range of shots comprised the pull on the leg side and a shot straight down the ground( actually building compound)....playing with a leather ball with pads and all seemed exciting......however in the summer of 2002 which was my first summer in the U.S I did not manage to play since I made a trip back to India and once I was back I had too many of my friends and family visit me............however I followed the season and the fortunes of our Akron Cricket Club all through the season...my room mate Adi was also on the team ....after every game the whole team would camp out on our porch and discuss the game our beer and 'chakna'........and since I knew most of the team I too ended up being a part of this post game session....that’s when I made up my mind to try out for the next season........

Fast forward to the summer of 2003.......3rd practice game of the season before the tournament begins on June 7th...we have won our earlier two practice games quite comfortably.........we were to play Cleveland Cricket Club(C.C.C) on the 17th of May, Saturday...it had been raining quite a lot for the past two days and we all were hoping that it would clear up on Saturday and the game would go on......mother nature smiled upon us and Saturday was a nice and sunny day albeit the ground was still quite wet and slippery due to the rain...however we decided that conditions were good enough and we had a game on hand........C.C.C. asked us to bat first ........we started out well but soon our star opener and find of the last season Phani was caught behind and the score read 16/1.....Puneet the other opener soon followed , clean bowled when he tried to hit the ball out of the park...wickets kept falling at regular intervals......Brijesh however kept his cool and kept stealing singles and the occasional two's.......none of his shots carried to the boundary because of the soggy outfield.....with the score at 54/7 I walked in......this was the first time I was batting in a game......I had only one thing on my mind and kept telling myself. “Hemant, don’t score a duck on your first outing.".........I scored a single of the first ball I faced and with that I was all set to raise my bat and acknowledge the imaginary crowd in my head that kept shouting Hemant Hemant!!!!!!!..........another edge and I scored my second run....in the meantime Brijesh had stepped on the accelerator and soon the score was 66/7.......I was facing the ball and saw a big gap towards the leg side and I swung wildly......missed the ball and survived......Brijesh shouted from the other end.." Hemant tu mere ko bola dimag laga ke khelega." ( Hemant , you told me you will play sensibly).....I nodded my head and the very next ball my 'galli' cricket instincts took over and I swung wildly towards the leg side....however the ball stayed low and I was clean bowled for 2......so much for a debut.........the remaining two batsman hung around for a while before Brijesh got out after scoring a patient 30.....the remaining batsmen had scores ranging from 4 to a duck...my score of 2 was third highest......something I should not really be proud of...but then

Our bowling started of on a decent note and at the halfway stage of 15 overs their score read 42/3.....we kept telling ourselves that we stood a chance...well we all have heard about the power of positive thinking haven't we???.........somewhere around the 20th over their score stood at about 64/4...a comfortable position.....19 runs to get in 10 overs and 6 wickets in hand..........I was standing at mid-wicket and Rajesh was at square leg........suddenly Suneel our captain motioned to me to move from mid wicket to a position that can be termed as mid on ...in layman’s terms he kept the whole of the leg side open for wild shots....and their set batsmen did exactly that......a wild swing on the leg side...his bat went across ...however there was no contact and he was clean bowled........awesome piece of captaincy by suneel.........after that what happened was truly awesome.....our fifth bowler and star performer Baji took 4 wicket’s in 5 overs......he bowled 2 maidens and gave away only 7 runs.........truly amazing........their next 5 wickets fell for 5 runs out of which 4 were clean bowled..........well what can I say.......3 wins in a row......does this mean we are a good team.......or that we will make it atleast to the knockout stages of the tournament........maybe even further.......or then this was just pure luck......I think only time will tell.......

I think positive thinking payed off........we snatched victory from the jaws of defeat...or then they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory....I think there are always two sides to a story.....