BPL

I started around 12:15 pm from my house in the hot summer sun of Chennai, on the Saturday 30th April. I was heading towards the venue of our first match which happens to be the cricket ground of AM Jain college, Meenambakkam.

The day earlier our team Captain (Samuel) had asked our team to assemble in the ground around 11:30 am itself to get some practice before the match which was at 2:30 pm against the team called 'Adraa Sakka'.

I started my journey in the metro train since the college is just next to Meenambakkam railway stations. During then, a thought that I was lethargic to the match crossed my mind. Since we have nearly 17 players in our team and since playing 11 would be picked up on the ground, I thought I don't deserve a place in the playing 11 for my late going. I rang Sam and told him that I would be in the ground in 10 minutes just to ensure that I was not totally irresponsible for the match.

I reached in the venue and saw the bally tent with lunch, biscuits, lemonade, sandwiches and all refreshments for the players. Only few were in the tent and a few were practicing. I have been to this ground many times before but this day was different since it was Bally which paid the ground fee and arranged all the refreshments. To my surprise, I would see any of my team mates on the ground except my captain and few others. I could spot them from distance since we were playing with our new team jersey.

We had printed a new jersey for the team just to build in the fun and team spirit. It has a pinch of Kochi Tusker's look but not fully, with black body and orange sleeves. Our team name is 'Hotshot Ballyians'.

When BPL was announced, few people in bally picked up all the best players in the organisation to form Strong teams. The organisers felt those teams to be too strong for the rest and forced all the captains to retain only 5 players and leave to rest for auction. By auction, they didn't mean the literal auction. Every caption can pick a player from the lot and has to wait for his turn to pick the next player in the round robin fashion after the other captions finished picking one.

This way, I was picked by Sam for his Games Team. When other teams were practicing hard for this tournament, we didn't even team up even once. I didn't even know any of my team members. I have hardly spoken to any of them. Our aim was not to win the tournament but the have good fun, an ideal way to go for the tournament.

I practiced my bowling and swung the bag few times before the match and I was picked up in the playing 11 by the captain. I just realised that, I have more responsibility since Sam has believed me and picked me up in the auction and I was the only auctioned player to play in that match for our team. I didn't want him to feel that they made the wrong decision of picking and fielding me that day.

We lost the toss and was asked to bat first by our opponents. The day before, Rupesh mailed the entire team to leave our opponents with just sakka in the lighter sense. Ironically, our batting didn't click and we just made 46 in the allotted 10 overs. The score was well below par to produce a good fight but still we went into defend in a confident way.

We got rid of the opener in the second over itself. The batsmen hit the ball straight into my hands in short square leg and started running. God knows what he was thinking. All I had to do was just collect it and throw it in the right end which I did. But the time I was given the ball to bowl in the 5th over, the batting team just needed 2 runs to win. I started with a wide and then got the batsmen beaten in the next 4 balls. I shouldn't say batsmen. It was a batswomen.

Every team has to play with at least one girl. The girl has to bat at least 6 balls or bowl at least 6 balls. That's a rule which was enforced for all teams. Failing to play with a girl, 2 overs will be stripped from their batting overs.

I got rid of the batter in my 5th ball with a running catch on my own bowling. The next ball was wide and the match was over. We had lost the match with our poor batting in the first half itself. One thing I realized after the match was that even the scorching sun couldn't stop our enthusiasm for Cricket and I haven't let down my Captain.

Our next match is against the team 'Tsunami Swimmers' in the coming week and I am looking forward to it. Sam asked me to go ahead in the batting line up and bowl ahead too. Hopefully we would pull a win in that!