Thursday, May 26, 2011

School Cricket

Mumbai, what better place to learn and play cricket. It was not the first time I played cricket, but the land of Sachin Tendulkar made it special to play it in the streets of Mumbai. The years were 1996-2000, I was totally new to underarm cricket. Born and brought up in south India where we played over arm throw cricket.

Throwing the ball not bowling it. Simple terms it is chucking. I was new to both over arm and under arm cricket. The streets were full of cricketers some very good , some beginners like me. It was difficult for me to adjust to playing this kind of demanding cricket. All I needed was practice, and practice is what I got. Moved along the reins and finally could become captain of some team.

Improved my underarm bowling, though my overarm blowing was a shame. I never got the line correct with over arm cricket. So I mastered my slow leg spinners and offies which turned appreciably. Got a lot of wickets using my offies, than my leg spinners. It was totally awesome feeling just making a mark. My batting was overshadowed by my bowling. It was okay, not very consistent. I used to come to party once in a while and blow the opponent away.

Keeping all aside, I kept chipping in with some great reflex catches. It was more anticipation and hand eye coordination that made me a better fielder. I used to dive on those thar roads and injure myself almost everyday. My mom was really unhappy by the way I used to come up with some new starch or cut every now and then.

School cricket, I played was a totally different batch of individuals. Even though a lot of people were from south India and settled here in Mumbai, they were more of mumbaikars than south Indians. I used to play with my own bunch of people at school, guys who were average at their grades. There was this scholars gang were everyone had good grades and they used to play separately. I always dreamed to play with those scholars and mingle with them and being in their conversation would increase my grades too.

One fine day, I did ask them if I could play with them. They did like me and said yes. I thought it was a break threw. I got into a better bunch of individuals and so I thought. I had to leave my old gang to join them. Ofcourse my old gang guys did not like this move.

One fine day, I was running a single and accidentally ball watching banged into one of the fielders. The guy I hit fell and his head banged on ground. A sharp pebble caused a small cut. It resulted in blood , which made the scene ugly. I was new to their gang. Though they did not abuse me or something, but finally sent a guy who told me exactly where I stand. Thats it I was out of the group. I could not longer play cricket with them.

My old gang were willing to take me again. Yes, its all in being friends. I realized my mistake of being caught in greed for higher grades. That day I started to realize, I am not very great at my grades, I am not a scholar. My brain is not like those super kids, its an average brain. I tried to study harder and try to outscore these scholars. I was successful in most of attempts. Just that my language subjects used to give me a harder time and keep me behind. 
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