Sunday, May 11, 2008

A Game to re-define The Immortality !!!

As always, came a perfect Saturday, bright summer weekend, with the tone for the weekend already being set the night before on Friday, at my friend Keko's (Karan) appartment, where the gang got together, to have some fun, chillax, enjoy and take a break from the stressful week...As always Aditya was at his prime best making people laugh and roll them on their bellies on the carpet with some additional support from Keko...Lot of new jokes came to the surface, lot of the old USC memories were re-lived and some new singing talent was also discovered...

The friday night chat went on for hours, and at the end my face was aching with all the great dosages of humorous laughter I had just received...

Start of this last week, and all the cricketing dudes had already started talking about the game against a team who called them "Chargers" in our group and they had a respectable reputation of winning matches and was to be one of the good teams we played.... The Game was to be held the next dayon Saturday, at 8 AM. Aditya just had one thing to say "We, The Immortals are gonna play this game tomorrow in such spirit and with such aggressiveness to WIN, that the Chargers are gonna repent playing us, and to add more to it, Aditya also said, that they are gonna FORGET that they used to play Cricket. Tomorrows game would make them repent that they played The Immortals" !!!

Will this turn out to be true ? Or will we be chewing our own words with faces hanging low ? Who knew what was gonna happen next, and who knew what the Cricketing Gods had in their mind for The Immortals ???
Will The Immortals display a show of their Immortality ?

Click "READ MORE" to read the entire post ...


Hold on to your breath and just read further, as you get the shot of adrenaline up your veins, as what you are about to experience and read, will give you goose bumps till the last line and at the end you will feel the excitement which I feel even while writing this ...

Game Day : The Immortals vs Chargers - 8 AM
20 overs each side !!!

The grounds which we normally used to play our majority of the games, are all baseball fields, where the sides are protected by fences, whereas this ground where we reached was almost a 360 degree ground as we have seen in normal cricket matches all over the world ... We were all excited and stirred up to play after coming from a break of two weeks...

One of the setback we faced was when we got the news that, Manan who was our opening bowler and batsman was not gonna play due to some personal commitments. And so Kunjan was taken as his replacement... But nevertheless we were all set for a good tough fight and play our best...

The pitch looked rock solid, just like Old Leavey days back in USC when Ronak, Bhupesh, Keko, Me, Aditya, Vivek P used to play ... We won the toss, and we decided to field as we had no experience on this ground ...

Toss : Won by Immortals
Side Batting First : Chargers

The Chargers Innings ...

We started off nicely, with some nice bowling performances in the first 10 overs ... In a nutshell, there was some great tight bowling from Aditya, then there was Darshil who gave us a double break in consecutive bowls, with some nice support from Bhupesh's and Keka's pace and line, the Chargers were pushed on the back foot with just scoring 31 runs of the first 10 overs at a loss of around 4 wickets ...

Then as Freddie Flintoff has once said, "Cricket is a very funny game, and it has its own way of biting up one's ass, and one has to see it and feel it once" ...

The session between the 11th and the 20th over (end of the innings) - saw some simple catches dropped by us, some very bad mis-fielding which gave the Chargers some easy sweet runs and to add to it some bad calls from the umpires too...But still we somehow managed to keep our cool and restrict the Chargers to a total of 87 runs in 20 overs, with the help of tight bowling by Nirmam and to finish things up by Bhupesh and Aditya along with some nice catches and fielding from Kunjan, Nirmam, Vivek P ...

88 runs to win from 20 overs for The Immortals - Can they do it ? Or will it be another bad story of losing ? Will it be a confidence booster win ?
88 runs is a nice respectable score especially when your opposition is known for their great bowling strength as they themselves claim their side as a bowling side ... This was what one of the players from the Chargers had said "We are a great bowling side, you guys dont have the pace" ...

Lets see ...

The Immortals Innings...

DISASTER ? Will that be the word we would be putting besides our team name ? OR will The Immortals show what they are made of ....

Our innings started off in a bad way, with the openers Batti (Karan SJSU) and Sanato (Viral) - both our openers out very cheaply with the score reading 3-5 runs for loss of 2 wickets ... It was our Vice Captain - Darshil and a stroke player Nirmam who gave us a glimpse of hope by playing steadily and also hitting 1 four in that process of giving us a stable platform...

But as the saying goes "When you have to go, you HAVE to go" and thats what happened with Darshil out by a splendid catch by on of the players from Chargers, and the very next over Nirmam too was on his way back to the pavilion, dismissed by a nice catch by the Chargers Wicket Keeper...

Score : 20-24 runs for loss of 4 wickets...

With our captain - Savan already on the field, when Darshil was out, it looked that this is going to be a bad show today from the batting department as most of us were aware that the middle order batting ALWAYS used to collapse drastically where in a space of 10 runs one would see us losing 4-5 wickets ...

I joined my Captain at a crucial period where the Charger having put their foot on the gas pedal were all "Charged" up, trying to choke us up and inflict a humiliating defeat upon us ... With still plenty of batting to come up down the order, it was decided that I will go in right now...

I tried rotating the strike to give Savan a chance to hit some shots and give us some runs on the board, so as to setup a tone for more hitting later ... Everything was going on great and it was 9.4 overs with just two balls to go before we would take a break...
I was on the non-striker end, Savan on the strike, bowler runs in, bowls a nice line with the ball pitching on OFF side, and Savan made the stroke...Whack, ball went straight to the fielder standing almost at cover, CAUGHT, OUT !!!

Chargers - Celebrating in ecstasy by wiping off half of our side in just 9.5 overs - with one ball to spare before the break ...
The Immortals - Hanging loose, with the rope tightening on their neck, all morale down, all excitement disillusioned, and a WIN nearly next to impossible ...

SCORE at the break : The Immortals are 32 runs for 5 wickets...

OK - GREAT we are almost the same as what Chargers were at their 10 overs (31 runs) ...

BUT, as we know CHASING a target and that too in pressure is really tough and difficult ...

IN came Aditya and what was gonna come next no one from us (not even ME) would have even have had a hint about it ...

Me and Aditya started off from the 11th over and we were facing a mammoth task of scoring 56 more runs to WIN in 10 overs (60 balls) with just 5 wickets in our hand and on the top of it - the Charger breathing venom all excited trying to push us out of the game with some tight fielding and bowling ...

Me and Aditya started off cautiously scoring at a decent rate of 3-4 runs every over, until the 15th over ...The calls between the wickets for cheeky singles were perfect, no confusions, it looked as if we were playing as one body with one soul and just one aim - WE CAN DO THIS AND WE WILL WIN !!!

Then came a bit of luck, when Chargers dropped catches, one off Aditya's bat and one off My bat (which was a sitter and should have been taken) ... But as always, "LUCK FAVORS THE BRAVE" ...

So the scoreboard kept on ticking, thus mounting frustration upon the opposition... The Immortals still needed 28 runs of the last 5 overs (30 balls) - WILL THEY BE ABLE TO CARRY THIS HOME ???

Then came the over which turned the game a bit - The opposite bowlers getting tired, gave away some extras, were baffled by some nice shots from Aditya and were giving away to the pressure too ... The 16th over saw us fetch 14 runs between Me and Aditya thus giving us some breathing space as only 14 more runs were required from the last 4 overs ...

The next over saw some more runs and we scored 10 and thus we needed only 4 runs from the last 3 overs to WIN !!!

Start of the 18th over, with the fielders closing in, Me on Strike, bowler at its full peak, trying his best to break the partnership and give their team a mere glimpse of hope, as everyone knew can ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE ...

First Ball ...Defended solidly...
Second Ball - The fielders closed in ... trying to save the singles and thus contain us ... Ball pitched, Defended once again ...

Meanwhile the best part which I was enjoying all through the innings when I and Aditya batted was, that my team members, were so much charged up as they were hoping and desperate to win this game, that they were all slowly slowly approaching the boundary cones in excitement...Further, Ronak and Keko, were continuously boosting me and Aditya from behind the batting cage, with Ronak managing to keep his control even with his hand in plaster due to a cricket injury and Keko trying to remind me of the yahoo messenger chat hahahahha ... Also thanks to Pratik to come and support us even though he had loads of work to do for moving out ....

All this while there was great great support from my teammates from behind the stumps and from the boundary line, and I personally felt that I am lucky to be a part of this awesome awesome team called The Immortals which is made up of craziest cricket lovers I have seen and who share the same passion as me .... LOL ....

I took a deep breath, to face the next ball, the bowler came rushing in, pitched the ball, and for the FIRST time in this innings, I FELT MY NATURAL INSTINCT overcome my controlled batting (as the situation demanded not to go after the shots and I was feeling as if I was in a walled jail since a long time) and I hit that ball which pitched outside Off stump HARD, and it flew over on the leg side, and I watching it GO .. GO ... GO ... GO .... was trying to figure where it would land ....

GUESS WHATTTTTT ?????

That Ball crossed the boundary ropes right in front of MY TEAM .... AND half way down the pitch I heard the roar of my teammates, all the way from the boundary ropes, and also from behind the stumps, rushing, running, jumping in JOY, feeling on the top of the world, towards Aditya and Me...

I was like WHAT ?

THE IMMORTALS HAD WONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN !!!!!!

I found my-self piggy backing on almost everyone's shoulders - Keko, Bhupesh, Kunjan, Darshil, Nirmam, Vivek, Viral, Batti, Savan, Ronak (who ofcourse could not piggy back me, but had some nice high fives) .... Of-course who would go away without throwing me in the air and kicking me and this time I felt it sweet and enjoyed it too ....

Aditya and Me had just SCRIPTED a great morale boosting WIN and even though the Man of the Match award was given to me, it is OFCOURSE TO BE SHARED by both of us - An unbroken partnership of 56 runs (Aditya 34 not out, Me 30 not out) .... It was a pleasure batting with him ....

WHAT A FEELING !
WHAT A JOY !
WHAT EXCITEMENT !!!

Amazing Game, Amazing Support from Aditya, Amazing Support from MY TEAM MEMBERS .....and overall for all of us Immortals - A GREAT CONFIDENT WIN to keep up the tempo ...

To my teammates - GUYS, WE CAN WIN, and WE WILL WIN !!!

Cheers ...

Samkit

(PS: If there are some discrepancies in this description than please forgive as I was too excited to write this ...)






4 comments:

Anonymous said...

bhayanak lakhyu chhe...kaviraj ne 100 salaam...Yesss...it indeed was a great win. actual it was more fun sitting behind fences and cheer u and modi with ronak/captain. hope u will continue batting like this and importantly we will continue winning like this.
go immortals :-)

Soham Shah said...

Great Work Buddy !! .. Great batting !! .. A nice win .. You guys did it !!

Atleast you are making your coach proud ;-) ...

All the very best for your upcoming matches!!

Unknown said...

Hey did not see d match...but heard a lot about it....great work!!!

Samy said...

@Karan - Thanks man .. Yeah we hope we can continue winning like this and have a positive attitude always on field and off the field hahaahah ....

@Soham - Thanks man.."COACH" - Me and Keko just had a great great laugh looking at the screen ... hahahaahah ofcourse without coaching how would a batsman be great nai ?? sala !!!

@ Ruchi - Thanks ...