Every player who has ever played either for India or for his gully team has dreamt of atleast get to bat in every match he is playing in. it doesn’t matter if his team is down to last over with 2 wicket in hands, he even feel proud to be the last batsman to play atleast a ball. That’s how I grew up. By the way I owned bat as well as bowl in my gully, opening batting and opening bowling was my forte for a long time until I came to IIT Madras.
My first week at IIT Madras was memorable for me. We had NSO cricket selection on a hot and humid Sunday morning, perfect for cricket in Chennai. We had some 100 odd Sachin’s fan waiting in the stand to show their batting and bowling skills to the insti captain and coach. By the way we had 70 odd for batting and 30 for bowling as expected and some 2-3 unfortunates who wanted to be next Mahendra Singh Dhoni for rest of their IIT careers. Yeah I was one of those 70 future Sachin waiting for debut in big leagues. I was feeling pumped too after hitting 2 fours in my Quad match against my seniors. I thought my whole Mandak batch will be selected as we had left our seniors in dust the last night. But unexpectedly I missed all the six bowls being thrown at me by next generation Brett lee s and I was asked to step back and go back to my hostel and never to set foot in the stadium again. And as a sincere student I am I took this advice seriously and thought never to bother the “playing eleven” again.
But life had some other plans for me, I got the lowest CGPA in my wing after my first year. That’s when I decided to contribute my life to everything except studies. It could be anything art, sports or even music (what? I wanted to learn guitar and I tried very hard to play it too). But the only thing I could get out of art and music was to learn how to get high and it seemed insti musicians love to get high on anything. In between my career as a cricketer for my hostel was on a roll and I didn’t know then.
Although I tried for a batsman in my hostel team but I was not allowed to even touch the bat for the next 4 years, because they loved my bowling so much that they wanted every tom dick or harry in the team to play my bowl. So I used to bowl for 2 hours continuously for every practice session. While other bowlers used to share the balls with each other, I was given my own balls to play with ( they were used to be so old that no one wanted to bowl with them. I win !).
I played at every cricket ground in the institute. By the way Insti has only two grounds. I have now played for my hostel team for over 10 matches and I have taken roughly around 30 wickets. I have played in the Chemplast, where Indian team practice when they come to Chennai. I have taken more than 10 wickets there in 4 matches I played. Although we were not big shots in any Shroeter but I got praise for my bowling everytime from the other teams. I was even invited to try out for Insti team in my third and fourth year by the Insti captain himself but as I had decided in my first year, I would never play for Insti. I ended my last season taking 6 wickets in 2 matches. I invited my dear friend Punchar for the last match of my Insti career and I am proud to say I have one more satisfied spectator.
