There are days where that one thing you have been planning and persevering to do well, goes horribly wrong and you end up making a fool of yourself in front of everybody. I had been practicing cricket for about a month for an inter-batch cricket tournament that took place in our college the last month. Everyday in the morning after leaving my house at around 6.30 I used to travel 20 kms on my bike, in chilling cold to play cricket. I was a decent bowler if not an excellent breed. Though my captain had only a little faith in me as he doubted my consistency. However that little faith was good enough to keep in the playing 11. The tournament had only two matches, one with the loosers of last years tournament and the finals with the winners.
So we had our match with third years first and we defeated them quite easily. I didnt have any role to play apart from stopping a couple of lousy balls in the outfield which was full of sand. My bowling services were not required by my captain. This sort of pissed me of a bit and I expressed my displeasure about the same to him. I thought I could have bowled an over or two. But never mind we moved on to the finals. The anger of not getting to bowl in the first match and and the desire to prove to the captain that I am not as bad as you think I am had fired me up. One opportunity I said to my self and i will show them what I am. I had a feeling that it was gonna be my day. After all big players are meant for big occasions. After a brilliant batting show by my captain we had put a big score for the second years to chase. The bowling for our team began excellently with our mainline bowlers getting most of their key players out. We were cruising and win was certain come what may. So it was probably the sixth over when my captain asked me to warm up to come and bowl the next over. I was fired up. I thought that all the hard work I had put would now pay off. We were cruising towards the win and it was not going to take any heroics or something from me to win the match. But I just wanted to leave a mark. Which I did.
With around 150 of my college mates watching the match on the field I came on to bowl with around a few of my batch mates shouting out my name expressing their support to me. I took my run up and came on to bowl my first ball. It was a wide. Well its ok I thought next one will be a killer. I came again and it was a wide again. This time I got nervous. The ghosts of the past are re-surfacing. I had a little history with wides, I thought I had got over it though. The next ones were wides again. Captain was running up to me and asking me to calm down. After 4 consecutive wides I bowled one legitimate delivery. After that again a wide, after that I bowled one on stumps but unfortunately it was a no ball, a no ball with a free hit. After the no- ball it took three deliveries for the batsman to actually get a free-hit. By this time the tally of number of balls I had bowled had already reached 11 with only three legitimate balls. The day which was suppose to be mine was now turning into a nightmare. My batchmates were turning hostile and of course there ones who always wanted a chance to pick on me. But on the other hand the second years who were quite for the major part of the game suddenly found their voice because of me. The over started out with my batchmates calling out my name and half way through it was the other way round. My captain suggested me to fall down and get injured, that was ofcourse not gonna happen. Then he started pleading the umpire to get me changed with other bowler of my team but the umpire bluntly refused. This was all happening in front of 150 odd people and needless to say it was embarrassing and humiliating. So I had a task of completing my over. I didnt give a fuck how I bowled but I just wanted to get done with that god damn over and dig a hole and hide. It took me another 7 balls to incorporate my 3 legitimate deliveries and finally finish the over. By this time I already had broken Ambrose’s record of a 17 ball over. I gave away 28 runs in my over. Almost the number of runs they had scored in their first six overs. After the over got completed I for a moment felt that a boulder of a ton was removed from my shoulders. We still won the match quite easily and thankfully so, or else I would have got raped by my own team mates. Their were people who came upto me and said “Hota hai Kabhi kabhi, chill maar.”
Those 15 minutes were probably the toughest to handle in my life so far. After the incident, just for a moment I thought I was better off just fielding o the boundary line. But it gave rise to a bigger question for me. I knew that I had put my heart out while practicing every day. I knew I could bowl well, at least not as bad as I did when it mattered. So the question that arises here is, How much does hard work help you and how much does luck or lack of it does. I am sure it would be something which would be different for different people and my answer would only come with time. But one thing that I can be sure of is that if there is another match of cricket, no matter what the situation of he game is, I would certainly raise my hand and shout, “Captain, One over please.”
