Ever since I started playing cricket again here in NITIE, I desperately get back to Wilson Gymkhana and play one last match there with my school friends. There are 3 reasons for this –
- I love cricket
- With 3 of my best friends leaving to US this year, there is little chance we would be able to play again.
- I have lost last 3 matches at Wilson Gymkhana and would like bid adieu to the ground in a respectable manner.
Now, I would like to elaborate on the 3rd point. Worst of these 3 matches was – I was the captain in all 3 of them and we lost the matches more or less because of my goof-ups. In the 3rd last match, I dropped 2 catches on consecutive deliveries of the “hitter”(Umesh Vichare) in the opposite team who literally hit us of out of the match. The 2nd last match made me infamous “cheater” in cricket. We bowled well in this match and needed just 35 in 6 overs. I came down as an opener, Vikram and I played out most of the overs carefully with 7 to win in the last over. After a brilliant first 4 balls by Kiran, we needed 3 in 2 balls. And then Kiran bowled a juicy full toss which my dear friend Vikram missed and got bowled :( We tried fighting over the height of the ball, but it was useless. We even lost a wicket on final ball to know the real meaning of “so close yet so far”. After, a year after this I played a match where my brother was also playing with my friends. I don’t remember the scores but we needed 10 of the last over and since Bunty felt he might not be able to pull it off, he handed over the bat to me. It was Aditya bowling his off cutters. I tried my best, scampering ones and twos to bring it to 1 ball 2 runs to get. The wicket keeper was from my team, since we had inadequate players. So I just had to touch the ball with the bat, and the keeper would have allowed me to get a run (I guess it was Harshad). Unfortunately, the decisive delivery came back sharply after pitching and hit me on my leg. We lost the match by a run :(
Of course, I did play better than this when we went to Jeetu’s home in Pune and during Lonavala trip. But my record at Wilson is something which I really want to improve. Hope we all get time to play that “Grand Finale”.
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