Summer tournament kickoff

Team Chandler Bulls had a great kick off in Summer tournament with an intensive winning match. We haven't been able to post the score card on Arizona Cricket Association website but I can guarantee that you will be thrilled to see great performance from some of the team members. I still feel the joy from hat trick wickets by Nilesh.

Enjoy a moment from game celebrations clubbed with Sid's birthday!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzEVo_dUh7g

Season finale

Sunday witnessed the end of an exciting cricket season culminating with the final match between the defending champs Rodeos and Laveen and the awards ceremony. Four of our guys Omair, Keshav, Bosco and Prashant received trophies for man of the match while Sukrit was our "Star of the season". Here are a few snaps courtesy Rajender.

Match On!!!

The silverware on offer

Rodeos - The deserving champs......wish that cud've been us :-(

Unanimous decision of the team- The unsung hero of Chandler Bulls - Sukrit was our Star of the season.

Saurabh receiving the man of the series award....eerrr... or was it the batsman of the season award.....oopps sorry he is receiving the man of the match awards on behalf of Bosco, Keshav, Omair and Prashant who couldn't make it to the ceremony ;-)

Handful of spectators....mostly the wives and baccha party.....

Ending on a high!!!!!

Boom!!!!!!!!! Champagne time again!!!

We concluded the league by scoring the second highest score (147) ever made by any team in the league and ended up thrashing the Suns by 42 runs. Although we were already out of contention for the playoffs, the fact that we completed the league with a not so bad record of 4 wins out of 12 even after regularly losing out some of our good players throughout the season was reason enough for celebration.

Here are some snaps of the celebrations.

Bull-slaughtering and Crushing the Crusade

Well this is one single post for two games. Just had no idea what to scribble after the last game. No words could describe the humiliation. One game, I wish, best not mentioned and forgotten for good(without even for the so-called learnings).
But still....opening the wounds... Against the Warriors, while bowling - we gave away the highest score in the league so far(163). While batting - we were 42/9 well in sight of the lowest score in the league (44), but some how the last pair saved us that ignominy. Still the end result of this enormous gap was that we ended up on the receiving end of the heaviest defeat in terms of runs in the league(111 runs). The so-called raging bull was not only tamed, but slaughtered and instead of goring it meekly surrendered. The most frightening aspect of that match was that we were on mute throughout the match. No noise at all. No cheering for a wicket. No cheering for a shot. No encouragement for a good delivery. No appealing. No enthusiasm. No fight. Just resigned to our fates.
Bowlers simply walking back to their designated fielding positions at the end of their over after getting thrashed. Fielders destined to either spectators or ball-boy duties collecting the balls from boundaries. Batsmen returning heads down to cool their heels. Just want to forget that day. To make us feel better we devised a chain reaction theory for the debacle - we had thrashed the Terminators so they were all pumped up and thrashed the Warriors(they were the ones who made that record low score of 44) so they in turn were pumped up and took out their ire on us.

The second game against the Crusaders. Well what to say. Before the match there were talks of abandoning the idea of playing in the league. Of scrapping the Chandler Bulls team or of trying to get merged with any other lowly good-for-nothing teams like us. And then one win changed everything.
Now I know what the word "morale boosting" victory means. We were down and out, finally. Totally a hope less, defunct team. And this win has been a pleasant feeling. Suddenly there were smiles everywhere. Fielders supporting the bowlers. Cheer for every run, every save.
We did had unexpected wins against top teams in the past. But we credited the pitch for it. But this time around it was a tight finish and we won not because of the pitch or any other factors but purely on the tremendous individual skills displayed by some of our guys especially Keshav and Prashant. A word here for Keshav- he seems to be the "South Ka Bachchan - Rajnikanth" Sukrit has been praying for to do a miracle for this team. From being the guy who played the entire 20 overs only to see the side lose in our nail-biting league opener on this same ground to returning here again to take the bat through the innings in another close finish but this time ending up as the undisputed match-winner in a victory. The only thing expected of him to do would be to win
a few of our remaining matches and wipe out that unwritten "Niche Se No. 1 team" tattoo on our forearms.

This surely has been a tide turner. That hope-arousing, all-inspiring, morale-boosting, confidence-building, team-motivating result. Most importantly we have started believing in us. We fought. Everyone fought. And that for me was the most important part than even winning. Well we may get thrashed in the next games again, but we have the belief we can win. The confidence has rose so high it may even last till the next season and we believe we will play as Chandler Bulls next season also, although I am not sure if some of us will still be there.

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.