Turning Point

The game ended and the captain of the opposing team walks up to me and says, "Hard luck boy, your wicket was the turning point. Well, by the way, do you play for any league ?" Made me think, "Am I good or good ? (modesty.. what's that??)", and got me thinking over my sleep.

Have you ever been involved in a turning point of any sport, like Gibbs dropping the cup, Khan letting off a regular shot on goal through in the champions league match? Could not think of the last time I was in such a position, but yeah today it was one such day.

Out in the scorching sun, battling on some alien grounds, playing a sport which not only I quit playing but infact used to desist for quite a while. I was holding one end strongly wile maintaining a consistent scoring rate, chasing a resonably moderate total. The occasion was Intel India cricket tournament's final and stakes were quite high. After a spectacular bowling performance by our team on the field I was kind of under the feeling that may be this is one of the days of glory. With our opener falling off the first ball, terror struck the nerves of most people in our team. This is when I entered the crease and with some real cool cricketing shots, I stayed there, batting consistently, must say that I got lucky today. While on the other end we were consistently losing wickets at one point we were in a position where I felt that I was going to comfortably win the match for my team today. I got into a good partnership with Abhishek (fellow employee), who played some amazingly sensible cricket, and the game seemed to proceeding in the right direction we wanted to, UNTIL!! A stupid call from either me or the bench, abhishek wanted an impossible second run, and continuing on his run-out spree he was caught in no man's land for the seventh time in a row. With this I was into one of the situations where my friend Rajaraman has been into couple of times. Me and my boss trying to get our team home. One more ball to go in the 7th over, the bowler was ready to ball and to my surprise my boss on the non-strikers end walked up to me saying, "Doode you are playing well, just stay there and we will win!!". But then was the statement which was one of the best prophecies I would have ever seen in my lives, when boss said, "Dont't get run out!! ". Then, there was the ball, which I played to fine-leg, I think it went straight to the feilder and there was a slight isfileding by him. I had been running for such shots all this while, but this time I think there was no run there.. and in no time I found myself watching the other team celebrating my wicket. With that, more than anything, the moral of the team was in abysmal dark. Quite a sorry sight actually to see pressure getting on to nerves of people who tackle much more complex problems during tape-outs :). Anyways, we went down fighting till the last ball, that was probably one good thing about it. Amit tried his best to get us back into the game, but I guess it was slightly too late. Its been quite a while since I played some competitive game, so after a really long time I felt really sad losing a game. The last time was probably when me and subbu clinched defeat from the hands of victory playing the finals of the badddy tournament in PSU. But, anyways to commiserate I thought of having some good indian food and with such noble thoughts, me and Chappati headed towards a cool south indian restraunt and feasted on a huge masala dosa and a plate unlimited meals, following which I crashed, thinking about the dreadful RUNOUT and the insightful words of thalaiva, "Never run of a misfield!!"