Thoughts Decoded

28th March 2009 – 8:40pm

No, I am not observing the 8:30pm to 9:30pm Earth Day as I am typing onto my computer. We, at virar, are very connected to nature and observe each day as Earth Day when we wander in darkness for nearly 6 to 8 Hours. Just received a call from Jiten who checked in to see if he and Parijaat werent the only ones with severe body pain. My body’s paining a hell lot too. He said it even pained when he laughed. I emulated laughing but there was no pain(thankfully).

Flashback(Friday – 27/03/2009)

It was good to see the sporting talents of our company exposed on the beautiful and grassy Air India Colony Ground at Santacruz. Everyone assembled dressed in Reds, Blues, Greys and Yellows. I was a Red and would have resembled Courtney Walsh(if you are trying to picturize how I would have looked)

Hot Misal with Pav, Poha and Tea formed the menu of breakfast while delicious biryani(veg and non-veg) was served for lunch. Soft Drinks and Glucose supplies helped lessen the scorching heats toll on the body.

The Matches:
Of the 6 planned matches and one final match, only the first match was played for 10 overs. The other 3 and the final match were played for 8 overs, while the remaining 2 matches were cancelled due to timing constraints.

After Parijaat’s Sehwag style of batting ended abruptly, Sanjay Sharma started his attack smacking the ball to towering heights to bring his team, Spartans(Red), to a comfortable win in the very first match of the tournament played against the Phantoms(Grey) team.

From the moment they won their match against the thought-to-be-mighty Nine Winds(Blue) Team, the Knights(yellow) team were clear favourites to win the tournament. With Jiten hitting the ball nearly everywhere around the ground, and with Shubam and Jijo and Sanjay More supporting him in the slaughter, the going got tougher for the opponents. I found Jiten’s captaincy similar to that of Dhoni..not pre planned, unconventional, staying cool and experimenting each player of his team in the match. He is a Vasaikar, he’s gotto be talented like me.

Kurund(the Phantoms) led his team to win the nail-biting do-or-die match against the Nine Winds. I could see him make religious signs while he was playing. I was the umpire and so I got a closer look at their tense faces, not to forget some tantrums too, from the Nine Winds team captain as to what kind of an Umpire I was that I couldnt see the batting team signalling for a replacement AFTER a ball was bowled and the batsman hit the ball(an ICC rule book would have come in handy at that moment or the eyes of a chameleon to see the bowler bowling from one eye and the pavilion from the other eye), and some players asking me as to why I didnt signal wide when the ball was wide(my arms were paining from long hours of batting so I couldnt raise them), and a Nine Winds bowler who appealed for an LBW(?????)…Man! It was fun umpiring.

The commentary:
From disowning and disdaining her hubby(Sameer) when he got out for a duck in the first match to cheery and proud commentary the moment he became hero in the second match, Pravina did it all in her entertaining fashion of humourous commentary, which also included sarcastic humour of criticising a player for misfielding or bad bowling or bad batting or just about anything bad..no one was spared..not even the umpires, ..Good Pravina, what would we all do without you? Now I know why commentary isnt allowed in stadiums.

The twist:
At around 4:30pm it was decided that only one match could be played since we had to hand over the ground at 6pm. The two round matches were cancelled and the Knights were declared finalists(since they won both the matches that they played). The other finalist was to be choosen from amongst the teams who won matches, which made the Nine Winds blow away like one wind and the Phantoms and the Spartans on to the hot seat. Finally, it was decided by the S/L method that the Spartans were in. Ofcourse, Spartans were the clear choice as it requires real fighters to fight tough guys like the Knights and not some Phantom that doesnt exist.(No! Its not a typo. S/L = Stephen/Lobo)

The Showdown:
The final match was a disaster for the Spartans. Jiten and Jijo made certain of draining away every little hope the Spartans had of winning the final match. Very few fielders moved from their places as every other shot that was hit was a four or a six. No bowler was spared except for the Vapi Express, the spinner from Modi-land, Rikhav. He was the most economic bowler of the match(no wonder he is a Gujju). The Knights wrapped up their innings after 8 overs making 114 runs. Sameer led the fight back of the Spartans till the end, but none joining him at the crease kept their wicket intact. There was some chance of getting back into the game when Rahul Nayak started bowling his wide-friendly over giving away 22 runs. Salil Sir on the other hand joined the competition of MOST WIDES posing a serious threat to Rahul, and bowled some back to back wides that made Kurund(the umpire) sit down exhausted and the people in the dressing room down with laughter. Maybe Stephen Sir told Salil Sir of some trophy for the bowler with the most number of wides…and probably Rahul eavesdropped on their conversation. The Spartans’ happiness was short-lived as Jiten brought Shubam into the attack even after there was wide support for Salil Sir and Rahul to bowl the over amongst the spectators. The Knights won the tournament.

Finally:
Our team captain(Neetesh) decided to keep me away from bowling because of my pathetic bowling during the practice(and I didnt mention my profile as a batsman, which kept me away from batting too..damn!!). Luckily, its good that now no one knows how I play and hence I can write this blog without getting the attention of critics. Oh! But I got two wounds on each side of my knee. My mom probably thinks I played some major role like Tendulkar in my team’s win but hardly does she know this was the result of bad judgment while fielding which led to a dive. The guy at the score table was pretty excited to open up the virgin first aid box, and told me happily that he felt the box wasn’t going to be used at all if it wasnt for me(Thanks mate..anything for your happiness). I was wondering if I could fix some deal with Amiteshwar the next time he assigns captains to teams. Ofcourse, I would insist on Neetesh being put in my team and return Neetesh’s all-day-long-fielding-with-no-bowling-or-batting favour on him.

Photos Courtesy: Pravina Prabhu