Match against Hashlingden

I had gone to Niagara Falls the previous night and was tired as I had little sleep over the past couple of days. I had to get up at 8 AM on a SUNDAY!!!!!!! Can u believe that?????? I had to get up that early to return the rental car. I got late and got to ADi's place at 9:40 expecting people to jump on me for coming late.......as we were supposed to meet at 9:15AM. Its probably the first or the second time that I got late in my three years here. BUt I was surprised to see Hari and Sirish on my way to Adi's house and when I got there not all people had arrived. People told me that Brijesh was missing and that he was sloshed from the previous night......*....flashback....flashback....*...it reminded me of RAM MOHAN who was our star player of last year and was invariably late for every match as he used to drink late into the morning and go to bed only at 5 or so. Kiran had apparently gone to wake Brijesh up.....one thing which I always tell people but they never follow is....not to wake people up by going to their houses....thats one thing I hate the most..call him 100 times if u want but dont go to his house.....if he is not responsible enough to realise that he is a part of the team and has to make sure that before a game he has to got to bed early or if thats not possible get less sleep that night......I mean if one knows that he has to play the next day it doesnt make sense to goto bed at 5 in the morning and them come and complain that he got less sleep...not that Brijesh did that...once he got up he was all set to play and wide awake.But I hope people realise that they will be responsible for their actions and will have to pay a price for letting the team down.....last year RAM was untraceable for a game and I dropped him from the playing Eleven....though the match got rained out and Kiran had gone against my decision to go to RAM's house to wake him up. I was angry with him for that....

ok ok now back to the game.....we left at 10:15 in three cars...Sunny, Kiran and Adi drove... we got there at 11ish and to our surprise we found that some players from the other team were already there....thats very unusual of Hashlingden. BUt the other players lived up to our expectations and got there only by noon. We started warming up and got into our whites and for the first time we had a team jog where all the players took a jog around the ground together. It was good to see Vikas and Sirish joining us for the game.....thats one thing that I have seen this season and hats off to those guys....the people who are being rested for the games were also attending the matches!!!!!!!!! Thats what is team spirit all about. Sirish was involved in an incident, which I would not like to disclose, in which he showed tremendous character and selflessness which cannot be compared to anything I had seen before. I am glad to have such a friend....great spirit Sirish keep it up. All this inspite of the fact that he was dropped from the game after his good bowling performance....as a CAPTAIN i have had to make lot of tough decisions which might have hurt lot of people but I have to make them and I am glad that my team is respecting the decisions.

I went in for the toss with their Skipper and I won!!!!!!!!!! thats 3 out of 4 tosses. I am proud of myself. There was no doubt in my mind to chose to field and my team was happy too. We were experimenting with the new ball...we had Hari and Manpreet bowling with the new ball and our regular bowlers...Kiran was keeping and Sunny was to come on as first change. Hari started off with a wide and had 3 wides in the first over..he was getting a lot of swing in the over cast conditions...manpreet bowled well with the new ball in the previous game but he started off with some short and wide stuff which were dispatched to 4's by the opener. The opener was good on the off-side so I packed the offside field. But the openers were picking 1's and 2's at will and an odd boundary. They raced to 33 from 5.3 overs.....then Manpreet got the ball to come in and got the batsman bowled!!!! That was the break through we were looking for...In Hari's previous over Raj could not latch on to a difficult chance at Point. the ball was struck pretty hard and it had come very quickly to him giving him little time to react. the Fielding in this match had been the worst we had fielded so far in the tournament. The ground itself was uneven making fielding more difficult. there were instances when the ball abruptly changed directions due to uneven bounce making the fielder look like a fool !!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that we got one wicket we thought we will apply brakes and contain them. I gave Hari an extra over than usual ....I take him off after 4 and bring him back in the slog overs. But today I decided to give him a 5th. There were a couple of close calls for leg before appeals. But the umpiring was decent and infact we got lot more than we expected. they were fair on the wide calls and were very very lenient on the balls down the legside. In the mean time the game was halted due to rain for 15 mins!!!!! we were very impatient and wanted to get along with the game as we have already lost two matches due to rain.....I mean they were washed out. With the new man in I put some pressure by bringing in the fielders close but they still succeeded in running the singles and twos. It was frustrating me....they were scoring at a healthy rate and freely. So i brought our most economical bowler for the season....Adi. He sure did apply brakes on the scoring rate. This made the batsman play the shots in the air and Sunny who came in as a first change bowler induced a false stroke from the batsman...he got an edge trying to drive the ball and ballooned a catch to me at Cover...that was the first catch I had taken on the field this season. Their captain walked in and started off in a majestic fashion by hitting Sunny for 2 fours. Sunny was again hit for a 4 in the next over and he was proving a bit expensive...though he got the wicket I was considering to replace him with Raj.In the 15th over a ball was hit straight to me with lot of power....I was at short mid-off....the ball hit my palm and it bounced on to the open cut on my palm and I dropped the catch but I was in great pain. So I went off the field to ice the injury. But before leaving I asked Raj to bowl the next over and he struck gold in his first over itself.....he got the wellset opener for 32 in a similar fashion as the previous wicket...caught in Covers by Adi....that would have been my second catch had I not gone off the field:):).....today we were very very lucky....Raj could not hold on to a tough chance in the initial overs and the batsman who got a life was bowled in the next over and I could not hold on to a powerful drive from the opener but he got out in the very next over so in that way we had our slice of luck.....

Their captain who was playing well and aggressively was then caught by Manpreet in Raj's same first over when he tried to go over the top once tooo often...Manpreet took a really nice catch running side ways......I came on to the boundary line to cheer the team for their success and they start yelling..."Tu field pe math aaa,udhar hi rook, hum ko wickets mil rahe hain".....soo much for being the Captain of the team:):)....nobody even appreciated my bowling change...ggrrrrrrrrr. then we had the break...98/4 in 17 overs....we had water and plum cake and then discussed the strategy for the next half of the innings. Those guys took a long time to comeback on to the field. THe umpires were changed and a person who I know is very irritating came on to the field. Kiran and I have been a part of the teams that have played Hashlingden for the past 2 yrs and we know who plays well and who gives good decisions as Umpires...this guy on the field is a nightmare to the bowler....he doesnt let u err in ur line if the batsman plays and misses the ball its a wide!!!!!!!!!!!!! Once the game resumed after the break...Raj and Adi continued to hold up their line and length so the runs were hard to come by and the fielding had improved too...so we were hoping to bowling them out for 150 or so. Then one of Adi's goodlength ball held its line and hit the batsman on the pads in front of the middle stump ...all of us roared for an LBW decision....but the umpire just turned around and didnt even look into the eyes of the fielders and the bowler...well...thats his style of saying...."Its out but I dont want to give him out"..the next ball ADi did the same thing and to his and our surprise the umpire raised his finger.....shock.....Adi could not belive it....he confirmed by asking the umpire...."does that mean he is out???" and the umpire said "yes" thats it ....there was no stopping to our joy. The umpire will be in for a rude shock when he goes back to the pavillion i thought...he will have a tough time justifying his decision for an LBW......as far as I remember thats the first LBW decison from HASHLINGDEN that I have seen!!!!!!!!

The next man in was Summers, he is a hard hitter of the ball and was caught brilliantly by Phani last year on the long on boundary....so we all knew where he was going to hit the ball and how hard.....so I sent the boudary fielders deep and asked the squareleg to fall back...Adi finished his spell for a brilliant...7-1-27-1. Those were extra-ordinary figures considering the fact that they were scoring over five an over. Raj also bowled well in the circumstances and got the next man bowled .....he finsihed with 6-0-32-3 those were great figures too.I brought myself and avinash on....the umpire called my first ball a wide...that was a good call as the ball was far outside the off-stump but the next two ball were on the off-stump and just moved away beating the batsman both the time and the umpire called them wides!!!!!!!!....thats it I thought.....enough is enough its time to set the things right....i called the skipper on to the field and got the umpire changed....by the way he later told me that he called my second ball at chest height a wide ball and that he could have even called it a no-ball.....he put his foot in his own mouth and was changed for the opener who was reasonable. I finished the over well and Avinash came on....he was on the spot right away....now there was a righty-lefty combination in the middle....both of them were playing well and were scoring freely. My next over was a bad one for us and a good one for them...as far as I can remember I have not been scored off that many runs in an over in my 3 years here..i gave away 13 runs!!!!!!!!! Thats a lot of runs. i was angry with myself...i was hit for 2 4's and I was contemplating whether to continue with the next over or not...and decided to bowl the next over. In the mean time Baji got a Maiden wicket.....that wicket was planned by Kiran .....he asked Baji to bowl short and on off-and-middle and he bowled 4 balls in the exact same spot and on the fourth ball he got the batsman bowled!!!!!!!!!!!!! great job Kiran and Avinash. My next over was an eventful over as I beat the batsman twice with the slower ball!!!!!!!! I always get a kick when I beat a batsman or rather fool him with the slower one. He was completely foxed both the times and I was very happy with myself. That over went for 4 runs ....then Baji continued bowling his good length and short balls....those were yielding only singles so I was happy. In my next over I stopped a hard hit straight drive that hit me on the bone at the bottom of the thumb on my right hand....the blow was pretty hard and i wasnt able to grip the ball well. But it wasnt that bad either.I finshed the over and asked Hari to start from the other end. Baji was bowling well so I kept him on and took myself off. Hari had 2 overs to go so I thought I will bowl him 33rd and 35th overs. But he was hit for 8 runs too so I thought why not try Manpreet he has 3 left. So I asked Manpreet to warm up to bowl the last over that decision was apparently not welcomed by some people on the team as they thought that Hari would bowl the last over. Manpreet started off with some balls down the leg and I was forced to think whether my decision was a good one or not, but he finshed the over with two brilliant yorkers enhancing my faith in him.

They finished with 199/7 in 35 overs....and we went for the break. We hoped to eat something for lunch as most of us had not even had breakfast...but there was no lunch but we were told that there will be dinner at the end of the match.... GREAT...we thought. Phani and Brijesh were all set to open the innings with Raj and I as the umpires.....

Our innings tommorow................................