I wonder how many of Manhattanites know about MCC (Manhattan Cricket Club) including me untill I saw first match’s videos & photos on Face book posted by Ananth. Being ardent fan of cricket, I decided to be present at the next match as a cheer boyJ along with Amit; he Okayed it as he badly wanted the attendance bcoz he is seriously trying for a place in the team; if he start appearing at every venue from now on, one day MA selectors may consider him for sureJ.
As gap between match to match is too long (close to three weeks), I completely forgot about it but Amit; Friday evening he walked into my cubicle and asked “Mr. Sandra, are you up for the game on Sunday?”; “I’m game for the game” said I and called off my day, ten minutes early, at office to avert the monstrous Bangalore traffic on outer ring road. Next day i.e. Saturday, Amit called up to brief me about the directions to reach St. Johns’ school ground, which is 20 minutes drive away from my home; we decided to be present at the venue by 10AM Sunday, half an hour before the match time;
Sunday: After reaching St.Johns hospital’s stop I’ve called Amit to ask about directions to reach the ground from the place where I’m but he disconnected my call thrice; I just waited for a while where I was before Amit called me back and reasoned with me why he has disconnected my calls; you guess why?? He was busy giving poses for photos along with the team; Only God knows what happens after the match, so team had done photo session before match commences; which I missedJ
Match is in progress by the time I made my entry onto the ground; our team is fielding stridently to restrict SONY team to lower score whatever possible. Sunil has opened the innings with new ball but couldn’t stop them going for big hits and I heard (after match) from him that “It’s very difficult to control the length with new ball as the fur on the tennis ball makes you to lose the grip on it“. Sony’s score card is catching up faster than petrol priceJ; every batsman did his contribution by smacking the cricket ball to keep score board ticking up, though we got their wickets at regular intervals; besides this our bowlers also tried their bit to add runs in the form of extrasJ; actually Sony team size was 13(11+2 umpiresJ); One couldn’t say that Umpires played fair role after witnessing one sided decisions while calling wide balls in our bowling though they were not wide enough. Extra players and audience (only Amit & IJ) got chances to shout, at the height of our lungs, here and there when our guys got the wickets though batsmen were going hard on ball to move it over the fence to get 6 runs many a times. Finally Sony guys concluded their innings throwing at us a tough to crack kind of target with 93 runs in 10 Overs.
MA team had to make maximum out of each ball to lock horns with the rival team under intense pressure of chasing the target with net run rate of 9.3 per over. Ananth & Shameer went onto the field to open the innings with the batting strategy of arranging as many boundary trips as possible to the ball & Sony fielders; but reality on the ground was at odds with our strategy; though Ananth could find some gaps in the fielding fortress, his batting partner failed to gulp down the pressure in chasing the target; Openers could stand the bowling close to two overs; Our first wicket was fallen in the form of Ananth while he has going hard to move the ball out of boundary followed by couple of wickets in succession with tepid performance before adding almost no runs to the score card; It might be exaggerated to say that we could hear pin drop sound in our pavilion but crowd went mum as thought of entering next round of tourney going to be dilapidated;
As top order faltered in no time, Guru entered the field to settle the things in our favour; he went for big shots whenever possible while taking the right call in defending dragon balls and maintained his equanimity throughout his stay on the field to keep the hopes of win alive though there was little bit of sledging from fielders in inner circle before ending his captaincy knock; Again our hopes of win are back to square one (in fact square zeroJ). Finally we had entered a situation where in our target were 36 runs in 6 balls but we’ve no Yuvaraj Singh in our teamJ and ended up losing to Sony team by some runs (I couldn’t recollect exact numberJJ);
After exchanging handshakes with winning team, team prepared to leave the ground with the thoughts of serious preparation for next tourney; Amit and I shambled our feet towards bus stop to catch bus towards Silk board but withdrawn that idea to the idea of walking all the way down till his apartment as we were seriously busy in discussing office matters (politicsJ)…..
No comments:
Post a Comment