Not every cloud has a silver lining

The feeling of déjà vu was clearly evident against the Silverliners today. It was as if God was playing a repeat telecast of the Stragglers match with the innings order flipped (we were chasing instead). The result the same. A heart-break week-end.

We say we have talent and that we dont lack in skill. I say we do lack in skill. Coz patience is also a skill. And we don't have it. While the other teams seem to have loads of it. Its not just batting and bowling which are skills.

We've also gotto forget going in the match having stereotypes in our mind about the opponents by going through their past performances. We ought to go in the match without viewing the other teams stats. The moment we see the quality of the opponents opening bowlers and batsmen in the initial overs we take it easy in batting, bowling and fielding alike. Batsmen tend to go for shots thinking they can easily breach the fielding barriers. Bowlers take it a bit easy serving out extras on a platter intermingled with a barrage of short balls( of the easier kind). Fielders not attacking the ball allowing a couple where there is a single and a single when none existed.

The only "silverlining", I think, was to see Venkat finally let the bat do the talking for a change. Coz for me the bat has taken a silence vow and the only thing talking is my laptop keyboard(as in now).

I was also involved in a terrible on-field mix-up with Sam today and caused his run-out.
I called for the second-run and ran 3 to 4 steps but realised later that the fielder had thrown the ball to the keeper who almost had it in his hand. So I ran back and with a dive was successfully able to reach the crease before the keeper dislodged the stumps. I rose to see the umpire declining the run-out only to realise that Sam was standing next to me in the same crease. In the meantime the keeper had fumbled the ball again and was struggling to get it back. In that moment of truth I looked at Sam and it was either him or me, someone had to run at the other end hoping the keeper would miss the throw to the bowler. And it was me who showed utter selfishness and stood their without running at the other end even though it was my mistake in the call. Sam displayed great selflessness and tried to run back and sacrificed his wicket. He was the set batsmen who had his eye in and I had just arrived.
I must admit I was such a jerk, a$$hole, stupid, fcuk1ng selfish m0r0n.
To add some more to my stupidity I got emotional and threw my wicket on the very next ball going for a big heave and didn't trouble the score-card.

I know its umpteenth time for this kind of appeal, but then as humans we have responsibility for not letting down the great human spirit of fightback. We can't just go in there playing thinking there is no use playing now, nothing to play for now, thinking we are going to lose. Hoping we can never change. We have to fight. We have to change. We have to improve. We have to win. In the next match or the next or even the last. Fight for whatever is at stake in that match - being in the play-offs, or for finishing 9th or 11th or not finishing last. But fight we have to.

Its time batsmen take silencers off their bats, bowlers start dictating (terms) instead of being humble servers (of extras). And fielders work for bringing a smile on our bowlers faces rather than the batsmens.

Terminator 6: Rise of the Bulls

Cricket they say is a game of great contradictions. Imagine this - last week we played against the "bottom" team, with our "strongest" line-up, "won the toss" and then "lost" a "one-sided" match. Today we played one of the "top" team in the league, with a "depleted" line-up, "lost the toss" and then actually "won" a "close" match. The silence in the camp after we saw the last ball sail past the boundary in the last match was replaced with cries so loud we almost have a hoarse voice now. The contradiction was complete.

We also had a new set of heroes. Bosco got the first five-for by anyone in our team. He would have got more since he still had an over in his quota left but Sukrit cleaned it up from the other end and so our opponents actually ran out of wickets. While in batting it was the perfect mix of immaculate patience and controlled aggression displayed by Keshav that ensured we made light work of the small target and sailed though with five wickets to spare.

Our fielding was exceptional and in fact I would say it was the fact that we grabbed all the important catches that came our way that we could bundle the Terminators that cheap.

One of the highlights of the match though according to me was the Appeal-of-the-Century by Sukrit followed by the heart-attack routine that he did. It exemplifies the fact that his passion for the game is simply unmatched. He it seems was also appealing for everyone since the other close-in fielders prefer to zip their lips while fielding. Other teams are more vocal because that keeps the pressure on the batsmen and also the umpires while motivating the bowlers.

Before this match , which was the 6th for us, we had just one win while the Terminators had just one loss in 6 matches. So we are 6-2-4 now. Thats 6 matches 2 wins and 4 losses. And still hoping to make the play-offs. While we wont want to get carried away too much with the win theres no harm in enjoying our moment under the sun.

Strangled by the Stragglers

How bad can a bad day possibly be. What can be worser than worse. What is the significance of "worst" when comparing bad-worse-worst.

You have a match against the bottom-of-the-table team in the tournament. You gaze through their records so far in the league and come to know why they are last. The only winless team in the tournament after 4 matches. A team whose so called top bowler and top batsman was the same person and whose record with the ball and bat was 6 wickets and 40 runs respectively from 4 matches. You come to the ground and see that this best player is absent against you. You see them play for the first few moments and realize that theres no doubt that they are really the weakest team to play in the league. You field your best possible lineup with good strong batting till no 9. You plan to not only win but win by a good margin so as to improve your Net run rate. You plan to raise a high score and then get them out real cheap. Luck seems to be on your side as you win the toss and elect to bat which is what you wanted to execute the abovesaid plan.

And then theres the nightmare. But wait a minute, I remember using this word 'nightmare' for what happened against the Rodeos(where although a loss was expected anyway). So what should you call this? Well - a 'worst' nightmare.

What can you call a loss when you lose to the worst team in the league with your strongest-possible-team-combination-ever by a huge run-rate margin which is going to hurt an already worst net run rate. When the highest scorer in your team made 5 runs and the team total of 59(which again was amongst the lowest scores in the league) was contributable to the generosity showed by the opposition bowlers who bowled 42 extras. Hoping to win with 59 runs on the board was never going to be easy. When the Stragglers came to bat, their batsmen's quality was quickly evident and gave proof as to why they languished at the bottom. But the same pitch which behaved awkwardly when we were batting was somehow playable for even batsmen of their quality.

Nothing could go right and finally when the scores were tied there was the proverbial final nail in the coffin. What worse way to end a match when a no 7 batsman whose stance looked like he may not have held a bat ever earlier finished it off by hitting a monster six with the scores leveled to maximise the gap between our scores to hurt the NRR in the maximum possible worst way. Sigh!!!!!! It seemed God was intent to teach us a lesson or two in superlative adjectives usage (with example) and the real meaning of the word "worst". And boy did we learn. We didn't just learn it - we lived it.

While we were batting, with the wickets falling it was natural for a few of our batsmen to see a silverlining even in that- it was there chance to realize that dream of being the team savior and score some runs. But every single dream "had" to end in a nightmare today. Yours truly got caught in the deep while hitting the first scoring shot out of the ground having eulogized the virtues of patience many times over in team meetings and scored only 5 runs less than the top scorer Omair - who scored 5. Rajender must have wanted to prove that the only thing common between him and Sehwag is not only the last five alphabets of their first names. But the chance went down the drain with a bad umpiring decision. Venkat wanting to give batting lessons to the batsmen on how to bat had to wrapup his coaching after a couple of runs when one of the bowlers gate-crashed his class. Saurabh moving up-the-order was in the middle order and waited 9 balls to open his account but the bowler didnt want him to and succeeded in that. Bosco started with a four but unfortunately that were the only runs that he made before returning to cool his heals. Sukrit I thought realised that it was time to play carefully and he did play carefully the only ball he faced directly to the silly-point fielders hand. Pratap and Srinivas V must have wanted a dream debut but the bowlers had other ideas.

I remember international commentators often using the phrase "scorecard-resembling-a-phone-number". That always seemed to be an over-enthusiastic, exaggregating, decorative phrase to me rather than something realistic. I would never ever forget in my life why that phrase was devised for we again lived it today. Our scorecard today was 5101031402 - which was the runs scored by batsman from no 1 to 10 in that sequence. To ensure how come God has again taken so much effort to make us realize the meaning of even this phrase I actually searched the internet to find whether this is a real phone number and found that it indeed is one from San Jose California(510 being the area code there). God had marked-up two phrases for our class today. And the proof was there.

The Stragglers who were supposed to be Strugglers came up as our Stranglers. Our journey in the league started with hope and then there were heartburns, empty-feelings and then hopelessness along the way. The feeling today,if there is any, is beyond hope and beyond hopelessness. Its like when you are repeatedly hit you become numb and it doesn't feel anything anymore. Earlier there was despair after a loss but now its business as usual. We've started getting used to it. Importance of Practice appeals, Inspiratory mails, Calls for fight are all gone now, and with it - hope . What remains is a feeling beyond hopelessness.

Strategising over a cup of coffee

Well as we had decided in the six week long break we needed to come up with some good strategies about where we were lacking and the general plan on our preparedness. With the relatively low work pressure on account of the Christmas and New Year week we had some time to quickly have a small team meet on our strategies. We met in the break room over a cup of coffee.
Kaptaan sahab was back from his marriage and a month long India trip. He was initially talking abt going in the semi-retirement mode but it was hardly a week and when we discussed with him what he had missed over a month the itch made its way back and he quickly turned into cricket mode. He was present for the practice match with Apollo just in his first week-end back. With his comeback, however, came back his re-renewed desire to go up the order - even though theres really no room there. Up the order would mean disturbing the intact working upper order. We are thinking of offering him any spot between 1 to 6 except 1,2,3,4,5,6 since they are already occupied ;-). The batting order was- in the sequence- Omair and Sam as openers followed by Ganesh, then Rajender, followed by Vivek or Bosco, followed by Sukrit. Which meant the next available slot was no 7 which in fact was one lower than his initial order. And it seemed it didn't matter that no 7 was actually lower order at least as long as it was single digited!!!

Sukrit was thinking of ordering 2 dozen practice balls - which I thought were enough for next 4 leagues considering the (ir)regularity of our regular(?) practice sessions. While we already had 7 balls left of the previous dozen - which I thought were enough to outlive the LB guys life here. An extra dozen balls I thought were enough to outlive even the Ness guys (considering how fast the preferred vendor changes)and the 2 dozen would live to see the day of exit of the next vendor.

One interesting futuristic thought evolving out of this was how would the team be when we would have been using last remaining of the 2 dozen balls. Sukrit would be part of the league organisers(anyone can guess seeing his enthu and that the organizers are often looking out for guys who take initiatives) while Keshav will still be replying to mails from his iPhone (iPhone8G that is). While Saurabh still realising his dream of moving up the order finally reaching 6, since the Wipro guy at no. 6 was flying back since his knowledge transition to the new Cognizant guy would have been over.

We also decided to order wicket keepers gloves. In the league matches the lack of gloves meant we always were looked down upon as the poorer cousins, who somehow make it and cant afford a kit. The keepers gloves seem to make a team look professional. Atleast our "looks" are professional if not our game. Borrowing from other teams was our Shaan ke Khilaaf. And also against our theory that the keeper doesn't really need a glove to catch/stop a tennis ball. Although the real reason was that we were on a tight budget. Also the lack of gloves made us feel like Milkha Singh -one who has talent and will fight, run and win - shoe or no shoe.

We also decided for the twenty-seventh time this season that we need to practise more. The twenty-sixth such plan for which I had contributed by writing an inspirational mail to the team about the importance of practice had went for a toss because I was watching Avatar in IMax-3D at Harkins Theatre exactly at the same moment as the planned execution time of that plan.

Equations in the league seem to have changed in the past few days with some of the minnows causing upsets by defeating teams at the top of the table and so our path to the knock-outs is now more harder. We now have to defeat not only these so-called under-dogs but also a couple of the top teams to comfortably reach the quarters. We have our next league match next week-end with the Stragglers - the only winless team in the tournament so far and no wonder they are at the bottom of the table. Considering our last win was also against the then bottom-of-the-league team we have hopes, but the only cause for worry is that we are going in this match with absolutely no match practice just hoping they don't do to us what Zimbabwe and Bangladesh did to India in the 99 and 2007 World Cups respectively.

Mix n match

With no match for almost six weeks the best we could do to stay in touch with cricket was to have some practice games. Had a joint practice session with the Apollos team today. This mix and match seems to be a really innovative idea. Its hard to get 11 guys in place on a game day, ever so harder for a practice match. And when you are practicing with only your team you actually need more so we can split and have a decent match. In the past this lack of players forced us to play shorter practice games(6 or 10 overs a side) which forced the batsmen to go all out from ball one -an approach which was the reason for our fall in the league games. With truncated overs, non-regular bowlers bowling and less than 11 fielders, it never matched an actual match scenario. Also the problem of practising within ourselves was that we had got used to each other - to each others strengths and weaknesses. Practice sessions amongst ourselves wasnt actually helping us - the actual match scenario was always a new one coz it was totally different from the practise games and players often had no clue, so we had to learn it the hard way - from the actual league games itself.

We found a solution to all this when we got a proposal from the Apollo guys for a joint practice session. They it seemed faced the same of our problems above. It was nice to play against a new set of batsmen and bowlers. It was also nice to see us win- the feeling is good- even though we know its just a practise match!!!

Cricket for a cause

Well we were supposed to have a month and a half long break from the league, but then it seems the cricketing itch doesnt seem to keep us away from the grounds longer. The Arizona Cricket Association, given their popularity in the east valley, was approached by the Indo American Foundation of Arizona to help them out during their 6th Annual Charity Walk. They arrange a 5K Walk every year to support local shelters in the valley and homeless youths and raise funds for them. And what other better way to garner support amongst the desis here than cricket. They proposed a so called All-Stars game after the Walk, with players from all the teams of the league participating.
All the teams in the league were asked to nominate a few players and two teams were formed. Although it wasn't really competitive cricket we were sure the participants were going to go hard on each other to keep the crowds happy. It also presented an oppurtunity to play infront of some semblance of an audience. Otherwise there is hardly anyone who has time to watch our league games(except the occasional wives).
It was fun to play with and cheer for players who we'd played against in the league, but I'd say it was more fun to play opposite someone wearing a Chandler Bulls T-shirt. You dont know where your loyalties lie. For a moment when I was fielding I was supporting Vivek, who was batting beautifully but incidentally was playing for our opponents - the India XI(we were the Desi XI), and when Sukrit came to bowl while I was batting, well - it was either he or me, coz he was coming hard at me and I had to save my wicket.
Everyone got a chance with the bat or to roll their arms and the result didn't matter, in the end as they say - cricket won.
Here are some of the snaps from the match.


Our own Hero Hiralal - Sukrit executing one of those stylish shots. He seems to be the only one from our team who got a nice close-up solo shot, otherwise the other guys seem to be supporting artists lurking somewhere in the background in the group photos.


Both the teams-

With the guests and the handful of spectators-


P.S. The food after the match was good. Tasted Samosas after a long time.....

Getting mauled

Before the start of the match we were joking around as to how this game can be compared with an Australia vs Bangladesh encounter. Somewhere in our minds we also liked that comparison since the Bongs had managed to stage an upset once and I'd be lying if I said we didn't nurture that ambition of hoping to emulate their feat. What happened on the ground in our match against the Rodeos - the defending champions - though was a complete whitewash which certainly has brought this feeling of utter hopelessness. We were outplayed in every department of the game. We had a few losses in the earlier games also but we always had some positives out of every match. Especially our bowlers, who bowled well whatever the quality of opposition. But today our two top bowlers who had bowled consistently throughout the tournament and were in the top rankings amongst bowlers in the league were thrashed for 42 and 43 runs in their quota of 5 overs and went wicketless. Watching their balls sail above our heads and land well past the boundary was a terribly discouraging sight for the outfielders. One of the opposition batsman sprinkled salt on our wounds by hitting a half century - only the second of the league. To hit a 50 with the limited amount of strike available in a 20-20 is certainly commendable.

Our batting brought back old memories of batsmen parading to the pitch and returning to the pavilion as if in a hurry. While our fielding cant go any lower with as mush as 6 easy catches dropped. After giving us a few lessons in cricket in the match it was good to also get a few words of symapthy from the opposition team. Their captain, after the game told us that it was their fourth year in the league and they were the champions last season but they were no different than us in their first year.

So with our hopes of doing a David to the Rodeos Goliath finally dashed we look forward to our upcoming games. The teams we are going to play henceforth aren't that stronger and so the future isn't that bleak. We also have no match for a long time now - our next game is almost a month and half away in Jan. But with the budget allocation season for next year coming up for our projects, we also are not sure how many of us will be there till then ;-). We plan to regroup as a team and replan our strategies. Try to get rid of our technical deficiencies and upgrade our game to a level where we could compete with the best teams. And I hope I don't have to write posts about hopelessness again.