Cricket

You might have seen my post about Mumbai Indians. From that post it is evident that I am a wee bit crazy when it comes to Cricket. Let me clarify, I do like cricket but only its shorter version or longer versions where Team India is involved. I grew up playing cricket, okay, I didn't hold a bat till I was 10 :| I was in a small village and we occasionally had plastic ball and plastic bat.. We used to toss ball using bat and count (hopefully you understood what I am saying). My childhood had severe scarcity when it came to cricket. Once my family moved to nearby town and my life found the missing spice that was scarce. My parents were not of opinion to let me play with gully boys, they used to think I will not study and flunk my exams; Who can bind their children, I used to play hell lotta gully cricket, I was like the worst player in my area yet it was awesome feeling to play, then fight, then play, then again fight then again play and so on. Slowly we promoted our level of playing and we moved to playground (that playground was meant for Govt School but it was like a public ground, everyone used to play there). As time passed by, we went one level further to hold matches with winning team getting 2 Rs, then 2 Rs per player. We used money to buy new bat and tennis balls. All of our matches were not finished, sometimes captain of opposite team ran away claiming that we were cheating, he was only finding an excuse to avoid defeat and abandon game. Sometimes two players had fight (sometimes players of same team too) and games were abandoned. Those were my cricketing days. I am talking about all these, you might be getting feeling that I learnt playing cricket, contrary to that, I was a big ZERO when it came to cricket.

I, somehow, was a good student in mathematics during my school days. In my 8th standard I somehow managed to get less than 50% marks. Since, 5th, 8th, 10th and 12th were board exams in state of Madhya Pradesh during those days, I got severe punishment for doing significantly bad in my mathematics exam. My father thought "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH", okay, he never read TOI (the famous campaign that TOI ran in recent past), but his thoughts were somewhat similar. My father decided that I have to go to boarding school and then started my life @ Indore. Rather, at Vishwanath Dham, Badodia Ema, around 17-18 kms from Indore city. Now I would not like to bore you with my amazingly beautiful as well as a bit ugly past (Yes, every coin has two sides [;)]). In school I used to play Cricket; Cricket on ground, Cricket in balcony and also cricket in a room. Every room used to have around 8 to 10 beds yet we managed to play cricket. We were caught playing, our warden punished us N number of times but the love for cricket was much much much bigger than the fear of punishment.

Then came the big turn in my life, I decided to prepared for engineering entrance exams (I am still not so sure whether it paid off or not). I took drop (1 year off) and joined coaching institute in Indore. Then we used to play cricket at our roof and sometimes at little ground cum park cum grassy mess just behind our residence.

Then came the proud moment in my life, my parents were so proud of me. I cleared JEE and got into IITB. My little cricketing (okay, limited to wing and sometimes corridor and very rarely to gymkhana ground) continued. I was same lame guy who can't hit a ball, who can't bowl a ball properly and who can't even field properly but the love for cricket and the fun involved in playing never stopped me from playing.

You must be bored by now, my intention was not to talk about my not-so-interesting past, I was going nostalgic and I couldn't stop myself from writing all the crap (above).

If Cricket is religion, Sachin is my god.

I have read this statement from various sources, one of my friends had it in his status message. Its a lovely coincident that Sachin is going to complete 20 years in International Cricket and I am writing this post today. I am really really grateful to Sachin for providing us with amazing fun-filled batting innings, some wonderful balling and also fielding. As I read in a editorial, Sachin is one of the things which truly unites entire India. Sachin was welcomed wholeheartedly at every single stadium in India and we tend to forget all our differences and enjoy together when Sachin hits a boundary and cry together when he gets out. Sachin is just a player but his passion for game, his passion for country and his marvels are much much bigger phenomena. Whenever he walks to the crease, he carries hopes of entire nation on his shoulders :)

Yours truly, never understood c for cricket in his early childhood. My father used to watch games involving India and I slowly learnt what is a four, what is a six, what is a wicket and so on. I started watching somewhere around 1995-1996 and everyone knows the form that Sachin was in at that team. 1996 world cup was pretty amazing till that ugly day when we were knocked out. As I said, I started watching somewhere around that time, I really can't remember much other than the fact that Sachin was a leading run getter :) I was transferred to boarding school somewhere around 1999. During our hostel days we used to watch games whenever India was involved. I remember the games played during 1999 world cup. Rahul Dravid was in such an amazing form and India were looking good. And to add to that, that amazing inning by Saurav Ganguly, scoring 183 runs against SriLanka. But we were knocked out. But love for Cricket never died.

Now, that I am looking back, I am wondering what happened between 1999 and 2003. India won first and only world cup title till now, in 1983. Since, 2003 was 20 years away from 1983 that number 20 (people give more importance to 20 compared to 16 or say 24). India were in such a brilliant form, they lost league game to Australia but beat every other team on their way to final. I remember the day, 1st March, when India were playing against Pakistan and I had my 12th board exams starting from 3rd March. Sachin hit superb 98 runs to chase target of around 290 (pardon my memory for not remembering exact number). I pretty much remember the game against England when Ashish Nehra took 6 wickets. We used to believe in totka, someone turned his Chappals and we unanimously agreed that India took wicket because that chappal was turned upside down and we all turned our chappals and enjoyed the game and our so-called false belief (okay I still believe in all those sort of totkas :P). Since I was in 12th standard, I had couple of pre-boards and all sorts of exams. Even when we tried to study we felt like we already know this thing or we can never learn this thing. Our teachers tried to keep us in control and force us to study but we never missed cricketing action involving India during 2003 world cup. I had my computer science examination on 24 march, Mekhla ma'am (our teacher, by the way she was the first one to taught us the word ma'am, we used to use madam before that) had done good job teaching us. Me and my friend, Anand, were good in CS and it appeared like we have potential to score good marks. But our all attention was diverted towards March 23, the final between India and Australia. We were hoping India to take revenge of the only defeat till then during that tournament and lift title. We, like many others, were day dreaming. We kept our studies in cold basket and watched game. Mr. Zaheer khan spoiled our hopes with his amazing bowling, but we had belief, we continued watching. Mr. Ponting added further pain to already suffering hearts. So did Gilchrist, Hayden and Martyn. When India started chasing, Sachin hit marvelous boundary in first over and I was so excited. We all were going mad and wishing India to successfully chase. In very next ball, Sachin attempted for another boundary, he did not connect, McGrath took catch on his own bowl and hearts of a billion people were broken, they still had hope but not so positive. Virender Sehwag fought well, he was not getting enough support but he kept playing and the last bit of hope was still there. Then came rains, I sincerely prayed to rain gods to carry on and force rematch, looks like my prayers were not strong enough or rain gods just ignored my prayers :)

As they (all of them:P) say, time never stops. India achieved successes here and there and looked promising for 2007 world cup. In the Caribbean soil, India played below par and lost to Bangladesh. Sri Lanka beat India and shown the door very early. 2007 turned out to be one of the worst world cups for India. Questions were asked, players were blamed and what not. The only positive thing was that performance against Bermuda, hitting 400+ and winning by more than 200 runs. Then came something which raised many debates.. Yes, I am talking about T20.

T20 might be killing cricket, as many say, but I like every bit of T20 cricketing action. I pretty much followed every single game during 2007 T20 world cup, IPL-1, IPL-2 and 2009 world cup. I will call it a day today, I shall continue writing this post some other time.