Cricket.....

Have been playing a lot of tennis ball cricket of late...surprising since we are playing in a tournament that uses Leather ball:):). But we dont have an option as we need to practice and dont have a place to play with the season ball...grrrrrr

Till last year we used to play on the filed that had batting cages right next to it so that we could have fielding practice and batting & bowling practice alson side each other. It was a perfect palce to practice as most of the pitches in our league use a concrete base with either carpet or astro-turf top. The batting cages were as if they were built for us, they had a concrete base with a carpet on it and had nets surrounding the batting and the bowling area. This year our practice field has been taken away from us as the University is constructing a "Frisbee Field" with Astro turf on it. Its a ridiculous decision as thousands of dollars are being spent on it and very very few people actually play frisbee on campus!!!!!!! I think its just another way of getting a practice field for the U A football team so that they dont have to travel 4 miles to the Rubber Bowl (abt a $40 million stadium)....they do anything and everything for the football program....thats unfair to the other students and athletes.

So now we play cricket on a softball field with tennis (MRI) ball and we play the league matches without any leather ball practice...I am not complaining abt that becoz we can see a lot more people participate and the games have become more competitive and its been fun taunting other players and we actually see what we do to the other teams:):) the only thing that would have made this scenario excellent is a facility to practice with leather ball atleast once a week:)

Last game was a bit disappointing as we didnt perform to our abilities in the bowling department and also in the batting dept to an extent. The top order collapse, brijesh and kiran out for ducks, was halted by Hari and Thimmanna...though the scoring wasnt that great they made sure that there was no more fall of quick wickets...Hari was looked to be getting back to his normal self and played calm and composed innings with occasional aggression to get a boundary. Unfortunately for Raghav after he played himself "in" he got out. Kiran B then went in as a bundle of nerves...the extent to which he got tensed was unbelievable. But he put together a courageous and aggressive knock with a couple of lives . Just as he was looking good he managed to give a simple catch that could not have been spilled even if he was fielding there :):) (just kidding buddy). I walked in next after a long break from cricket (due to the India trip). Hari was looking good when he played a stupid shot which can be considered to be a very very irresponsible shot given the context of the game and that he was the set batsman. he got out and Srikanta walked in confidently....he played the first couple of balls very well but then got carried away and tried to flick a ball and got a top edge that ended as a simple catch.

I have always enjoyed running with Baji as we have been in similar situations over the past year and we managed to run 1's and 2's comfortably. We were doing the exact same thing when he played an uppish flick that went straight to the fielder...came in sunny....at that point I think COBCA (other team) must have thought that they were on top with all the bastman gone....I got run out the next over...I usually run pretty fast but guys mentioned it to me later that i had slowed down during my second run that resulted in my run-out. But I felt that i was running in top gear....I was tired but I guess thats what happens when u have a long break and zero fitness:)...but my run out was the turning point of the innings as Manpreet and Sunny blazed away and scored 45 runs in less than 5 overs!!!!!!! we ended up with 182/8 in 35 overs not bad!!

They started off well and were on course to win if rain had not interfered!!!!!! Thank God for that...they were 104/1 in 18.3 overs....it was one of the few below par performances of our bowling attack...but atleast now we know that we cannot get over confident that we got others all-out in the stipulated overs!!!!!!!! now back to square one to figure out (fresh start)what has to be done abt the batting and bowling for the next match by putting the last match behind us...Go Akron Go....

Talking abt cricket and not mentioning Dravid is a sin!!!!!!! I know lot of people would beg to differ but I dont care:):) Did I ever??? Dravid showed the class today!!!!! though it was against UAE...the other batsmen had the same attack to face too....but he showed the kind of form he was in....AWESOME.....it was a treat to watch him and kind of improvisations he was pulling off were simply unbelievable...name it...Pull, Cut, Sweep, Gliding to the thirdman, flick, cover drive (can anybody hit it better???), inside out shot, lofted shots over the point area, down the ground and ofcourse his brilliant running between the wickets....he has come a long way from where he started and its time he gets what he deserves.....to be known as the "Premier batsman" of the current indian side....Just becoz u are someone's fan u cannot deny the facts as they are proven by stats!!!!!!!