Days are gone??????

        When I thought that every good thing was ended with my college and there is nothing like that will happen again, suddenly last Friday something happened which has brought some cheer to me. It’s a very simple thing but the happiness while doing that will bring an immense pleasure for me. A cricket series is going on in my office and I played a match on Friday. I always loved to play cricket or for that matter any game and I will never get tired or bored of playing it. Even if there is only one person is accompanying me, I wouldn’t mind keep on bowling to him all the day.

         The format of the series is such that we have been divided into 3 teams, according to our accounts and every team has to face-off other teams 3 times and a best of three match finals. Sounds exciting, right? It started by last Thursday and I have got my chance to play by Friday. The ground has got something called pitch, no-no, we have chosen a small rectangle from that big uneven ground as pitch and started to set our own boundaries. And I have played cricket 18 months back, so first I practiced how to hold the bat. I have also tried my hand at bowling too for 2 balls; I am bang on target at the batsmen face with my beamers (ball thrown straight at the batsmen’s face) than at the stump. So to avoid some blood shed (we have played in tennis ball ), I refrained from bowling (It’s a different matter, My teammates didn’t asked me to bowl).

         The match has contained all the aspects of a street cricket. Umpire was from the team which is batting. So, even the full-tosses which were going under the hip called as no-ball and the balls going under the bat called as wide. Long arguments for the way the other side has done the umpiring and tit-for-toe, everything reminded of my school days, where we just fight like this. I am just laughing at them still everybody loves to win the game at any cost. Thankfully, we have got stumps. In school, we used to draw the stumps at the walls and there will be arguments for whether the ball has hit the stumps. If the boy standing as umpire wants to bat, he will give out even though the ball didn’t the stump (lines drawn).

              Coming to the match, our opposition team batted first and got 70 runs in 8 overs. As many of us were playing after a long time, we couldn’t bowl well and with a run for a wide didn’t help our cause. Anyway the opposite team players also didn’t have match practice, but they did bowl well with very much less no. of wides. So obviously, we had to get runs out of our bat  But we managed to win the match with 2 balls to spare in the dying light. With some friends coming over to the ground just to encourage us is a great thing. And the way we screamed for every sixes and fours took me to the old, happy school and college days.

             And while returning from the ground we went to a push-cart in which the Pani puri was sold. We keep on eating the puri’s till our stomach was filled and has a nice chat among us, with everybody kidding and pulling others legs. This is the same kind of thing we used to do after the day long cricket at my friends home. After the cricket, we will go to a fast food and with the small amount we have. We will order the items, keeping the amount required for our travel back to home safe. But the only difference is, we don’t have to worry about money now. Even though with that limited money, unlimited joy is guaranteed. If at all we had this much money on that time means, we would have ransacked the whole shop with our food hunting talent Anyway days are not gone that much far from playing cricket. We have to organise something like this one day and enjoy.

         Oh!!! I didn’t said about my contribution to the match right. When I batted, poor bowler bowled 3 balls in the leg-side (only area I will hit the balls) for me and I have hit them to 14 runs and got out. I am happy with that. We will not have a struggle to go to the finals as we have won 2 matches we have played. And with 4 matches to go, we have to win only 2 matches to move to finals. And the tournament is going to end by April 10 only. So till then, its going to be a great fun for me and many of my friends in my account and hope I will have more stories like this to share with you all.