Friday, December 25, 2009

A lovely night with a lovely gift


It was a Thursday afternoon. Clock's bigger hand was in between 2 & 3 and smaller hand had already crossed 6. Normally I used to wait this time when any day-night cricket game is on its way. Yes! It was the 4th ODI between India and Srilanka of the last ODI series of 2009. Strange! The game had already started and I had forgotten it. Somebody in office shouted that Dilshan got out then I woke up and realized that its cricket match going on. There onwards I started looking into the match and my finger was frequently moving to F5 to refresh the score.

But, it was disappointing. In spite of loosing Dilshan early, with the explosive batting of Tharanga and skipper Sangakara, Srilankans were brilliantly keeping the score board running up at almost 6 runs a over. One thought came to my mind that it’s someone else's day today. Ohh! Happened the same and Tharanga scored his 7th ODI century. At the end, with Parera's brilliant 30 off 12 Srilanka managed to cross 300 and scored 315 in limited 50 overs.

In between while moving towards home from office, I met my friend Tejas in/arround Infosys campus. Tejas is a good fan of cricket. While having some dabeli n all we were discussing about the same match which was being played at Eden garden, Calcatta. Finally the discussion came to a conclusion that in the absence of Dhoni and Yuvi, if we lose both Sachin and Sehwag early, it will be a winning game for Srilanka to level the series by 2-2.

Having the similar thoughts in mind, I came to home and started watching the match with negative mind. Though I was fully supporting India, after losing Sachin & Sehwag early in first 6 overs and with the score of 22 on board, I was ready to wrap it all together. Having the crossed fingers and scolding the on crease batsmen Virat Kohali and Gautam Gambhir I was watching the match. My wife observed my temper and laughed at me. Later, she added that one of her colleagues is looking for Srilanka's victory so as to make the last and final game more interesting. My eyes became red with anger, but I kept quite with the saying of "Truth is a truth".

After losing world class top two batsmen, with the score of 22/2 it was not at all looking good and I switched myself to surf an internet to make me happy. I was trying to keep whole of my concentration on Facebook playing FarmVille, at least it was going well for me :o). But still, out of curacity TV channels were switching between Neo Sports and Zee Marathi. Now it was the time for dinner and I had to move away from facebook too. So after completing all the daily serials n all, slowly and obviously I moved to Neo Sports. It was looking like both Virat and Gauti were playing good. But target was too far, so confidence stroke on each new delivery was important which was very difficult under pressure knowing that there are hardly few good batsmen coming in middle order ahead. Hence after dinner I found another way to pass the time and started playing Carrom with my wife. After all, I had to watch the match till the end irrespective of its result.

As usual, I sat facing towards TV and started playing Carrom. Usually, I used to play better than my wife and used to beat her. But this time the scene was different and she was playing better than me. I kept wondering to myself how come this is happening. Looking towards my burdened head my wife confirmed that this is all because of the Cricket match. According to her, though I was on Carrom board, all my senses were concentrating towards TV. I laughed to myself with this explanation and promised her a party on India's victory. She reminded me that I already have a pending party for the 1st historical victory (the one in which India won by just 3 runs even after scoring 414 runs). I smiled at her and shook my head.

It turned to a lovely evening for Virat and Gautam, both of them were playing the game of their life. Virat completed his brilliant maiden century under huge pressure and soon after Gautam raised the hopes with his 7th ODI century for India. They were playing like a champ. Now all was going smooth and the game was in India's court. Suddenly Virat failed down to convert his shot to a big sixer and got out. But it was not the time to worry. Yes! Before his dismissal on 107, Virat had already added 224 runs with Gautam Gambhir to put India from 22/2 to 246/3. Though 69 were needed from almost 65, with the way Gautam was playing nothing was too far.

Dinesh Karthick joined Gautam to drive India towards the victory with one of the greatest chase. At the end it was even going too smooth and anybody could have noticed the frustration on Srilankans. Keeping more than a over to spare India took the match away from Srilankan with the winning lead of 3-1 in the series. Really, In the absence of Dhoni & Yuvi and after a super flop show by Sachin & Sehwag, chasing the highest total on India's one of the biggest ground Eden garden, what do you expect more than this from rest of the team? Gautam smashed unbeaten 150, the highest individual score on this ground to contribute biggest share in India's Victory.

It was a lovely night with a lovely gift by Virat and Gautam on the eve of Christmas.

4 comments:

  1. Zakas..poraga sudharala aahe..!

    -Anant

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  2. Thanks to your cricket... at least because of that I won Carom match :) But hats-of to you for your madness towards Cricket..

    --Teju

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  3. hey nice post dude!
    seems like a match comentry..
    flow of writing is nice, realistic..
    but can be improved in ornamental way..
    kip on posting...:)

    ReplyDelete