Vindication.... Sweet Vindication!!

Jayesh running headfirst into Darius, which leaves one of them knocked down to the floor... Dhruva sprinting through, liberally distributing high fives. Vinayak bouncing around like Sonic the fuckin' Hedgehog slapping backs and well.. bouncing around. All the while, dust kicked up by eight highly over-stimulated individuals was creating a mini dust storm overhead. And of course, there were the discontented, sore losers who were sul-....

More on that later.

For now though, allow this writer to take you through the fortunes of a 'team', still smarting from a thorough trouncing at the hands of a real team, in the Inter-Class cricket tournament. There was none of the intensity and dedication, the likes of which were witnessed prior to the Inter-Class tournament, in terms of preparation for this Adorea '06 ARENA (not to be confused with Hakim's Arena) 8-a-side cricket tournament and hardly any enthusiasm either. A matter-of-factly accepted excuse to get out of Monday morning lectures was incentive enough for Sahirr, Vinayak, Darius, Dhruva, Joslin and myself to drag ourselves to the College Gymkhana, first thing this morning. A special mention must go out to Jayesh for being the only person to actually exhibit a semblance of enthusiasm towards this ARENA thing and for his tireless efforts towards foraging for information about the same despite the haphazard manner in which it was doled out by the simpletons of the BMS department. Also, big time Kudos to Vivek for turning up despite battling a fever.

But I digress. The point is that we all turned up, kitted out rather unorthodoxly, but kitted out nonetheless, from the all white attire sported by the traditionalist Vinayak to the all black, sported by Darius, who's look would have been truly complete with a dash of war paint (FMC States Project anyone?). The captain walked in purposefully next, followed by the most inspirational image of the day. Joslin Harris, air-drummer extraordinaire, strutting up with a mean game face on. A game face that said "I mean business today, even if I do spend the rest of the day, swinging the bat around in dangerous proximity of other people and even if I do walk down Marine Drive, holding my bat aloft in the air, celebrating my-... celebrating SOMETHING and taking guard in the middle of the footpath,... I MEAN BUSINESS, GODDAMNIT!!!" The future star of the day and usually oblivious to all around him, Sahirr arrived soon after and before long, everyone was at the ground. That is to say, everyone except the bloody organisers, who were strolling up and down casually, putting up their sponsors' banners and leaving us pondering what we were missing in the morning lectures. Well, the ponder-ings ended fairly soon, once we heard about Jayesh's rendezvous(es) with his maid and the remnants of her lipstick on his t-shirt.

Banners and enclosures were finally up, when the news dribbled through that matches would commence at 10....then 10:30... and finally 11:00. All the while, we watched on in awe as the cricket pitch was first surrounded by nets on two sides. Then a mini boundary was drawn up and finally, a crease was drawn up halfway down the pitch, leaving us scratching our heads wondering if it was going to be an underarm tournament. I shall revisit the 'underarm' later.

Nets were up, creases drawn, a tiny cadre of supporters were present and Ritesh had been told that he was sitting out the match. The time was upon us. The rules and regulations for this tournament were heard and we were all set to go. The announcement on the public address system rang out, "Sandwiches will soon be available on sale at the stall...the next match is Wilson B, captained by 'Jelcyn' versus Lalla's team from Bhavans..."

Sandwiches? What the fuck?
Jelcyn? What the fuck?!?
LALLA's Team?!? WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

Skipper Jayesh Nambiar lost his second toss on-the-trot and saw his team being put in to bat. Sticking to a tried and well, not really tested, so a tried formula of opening with Darius and himself, we were in trouble from the start. Darius caressed the ball right into the waiting hands of a fielder and that was the end of his role in that particular innings. I walked in next and maintained a quiet and dignified presence at the runner's end for most of the match. Truly, this was the best seat in the house to use a fairly overused cliché. The next 25 minutes or so, saw some self-assured batting from Sahirr, a couple of ungainly hoicks from Joslin (making what he could of the last 2 balls of the innings), frustration from Jayesh and Dhruva, culminating in the ball sailing over the boundary off their bats and causing their downfalls and some fairly ordinary fielding from the Lallas. Despite all that, the FYBMM Spitfires, captained by 'Jelcyn' limped to 29 runs off 6 overs. Not too shabby and not particulary great either. In other words, a competitive total.

A quick team pep talk, punctuated with some fairly inspired strategies was the inspiration behind the move to bring Dhruva into the attack from the first over itself. The move, as most moves that are worthy of being discussed tend to do, brough rich dividends. A dismissal in the first over and we were up and running. After Dhruva's tight first over, I was brought into the attack. The hideously short pitched bowling hurled down by yours truly did bring us another wicket, albeit at the expense of a fair few wides. 6 extra runs to be precise. Not to be overawed by the 12 runs haemorrhaged in the first 2 overs, Dhruva came back and bowled another tight over. Sahirr was brought into the attack next and he did a magnificent job pegging back the batsmen and not allowing any expansive drives or cuts. Also, there was a fine run out in his over, which proved to be quite a sign of things to come. Not that we had any idea that this Lalla team had the single worst collection of runners-between-wickets in the world, barring Kolkata and Multan of course. Leading up to the penultimate over of the game, this bunch of coordinationally-impaired monkeys (for want of a more suitable term) suffered FIVE... that's right, FIVE runouts.. Something that truly amazed and amused me was the fact that none of them seemed even remotely interested in returning to their crease once it looked like a run out MIGHT be on the cards. Not to take anything away from our lightning quick fielding *cough cough*, but they were truly the kings of shoddiness when it came to taking runs. My personal favourite incident was one involving a batsman charging down the pitch and copping a blow between the eyes and setting off for an ill-advised run. Naturally, he was run out and naturally, the batsman on the runner's end had a volley of expletives for the victim of the run out and his teammates. The stuff of legends, make no mistake about it. Finally, Mr Mistry stepped up to bowl the penultimate over. 10 runs required off 12 balls, with one wicket in hand. With two potential finalists of the 'Main Pilsbury Dough Boy Banna Chahta Hoon' contest at the crease, we had ample reason to feel perhaps, a little complacent. A four and a couple of wides later, we were anything but complacent. Well and truly down for the count. It must be noted that the umpires were far too strict and anything even a centimetre outside legstump was adjudged to be wide. Darius, however maintained his composure amidst the chaos and kept the ball at the batsman's feet. He pushed for a single and lumbered off for a single. Next, came the moment that will forever define the word 'vindication' (for me, at least).

To recap,...after a humbling defeat at the hands of some experienced TYBSc lads, the FYBMM Spitfires had more or less, disbanded. Then this tournament came along and we expressed a moderate interest in it and now, the stage was set. 8 balls remaining.. 2 runs required... 1 wicket in hand. The stage was set for the lard lads to steal glory from us. The stage was set for the Spitfires to suffer another crushing blow. The stage was set for a fairly emotionally draining end to a hard fought campaign. In a day and age of captains usually putting their feet up and relaxing, today just so happened to be the day that one captain decided to put his hand up and truly lead his team by example and throw down the stumps and run one of the lard lads out.

Victory by 2 runs!

Amid the above described scenes of frenzied celebration and relief, were the scenes of sore losers clutching at straws and claiming that the wicket-keeper and the writer of this piece had knocked the wickets over with his hands before the ball hit them. Utter tripe, I assure you.

And so we walked away with our egos re-inflated, plotting the demise of another team with another unfortunately named captain. What tomorrow holds for us will only be discovered at 9:00 am tomorrow morning. For now though, I plan to continue musing about the vindication... OUR vindication.

Note: The awards ceremony will be fairly brief this time, with Sahirr Sethii sweeping the awards in all categories. He picks up the following awards:
1)Best Batsman
2)Best Bowler
3)Largest contribution to the win
4)The Inaugural "Sahirr, What is your point?" Award
5)The Hutch Dog Award for umm...Achievement in the Field of Excellence


And before I forget, I had mentioned above that I would revisit the 'underarm' and so I shall, aided by a couple of photographs.
THE MAN: Trevor Chappell, brother of one Greg Chappell, and veteran of a whopping 3 Test matches.
THE DEED: Bowling underarm at the end of the match in a devious effort to win.
THE POINT: To provide evidence to support my claims of the existence of a Trevor Chappell and the fact that it was he who bowled underm when spurred to do so by his brother and captain, Greg Chappell.

Consider yourselves humbled. You know who you are.


Karan
(thanks to cricinfo.com - the online resource for cricket news... There we go, no lawsuits)