Gully T20 - The boys are back...

Cricket - Is this not a religion in India. To us it was...We just like any other Indian kids were born and brought up with cricket. It all starts with a cream color plastic bat and a red color plastic ball. Trust me that red plastic ball to us was our Kookaburra or the SG cherries that the international bowlers like to lay their hands around.Over a period of time we graduate to the next level by getting small Viswas(we go by brand you see :-) ) bat and the multi color striped rubber ball...then to the tennis ball and the light weight tennis bats. Talking of tennis ball cricket, playing in the narrow alleys or the small vacant plots next to your house gives you all the pleasures that you'd yearn...

We had the team of ours, it started with 5 and over a period of time there were exodus in and out of the team but the crux remained.

Thought would put a post on our team and some of our bloopers - oh boy each of us were some characters....

To start with me, a so called all rounder but a decent fielder, was captain for quite some time before others took over in rotation. All of my team still scold me for my famously infamous reverse sweep, which cost us a match which we were sure to win. This was during a match when we were cruising towards victory and just then something happened to me and i tried to reverse sweep a ball for six. I completed the stroke and started running shouting at non striker (guess it was Ramesh) to run as well as he was standing still. As i was running i got to him and shouted "Oduda somberi" ("run you lazy fellow"). He replied in his typical nonchalant way, "Kuchiya vitutu, yenna enga da oda solre???" (Bugger, stumps shattered and where're you asking me to run?). Believe me the whole ground was laughing much to my embarrassment and we lost that match also to add to my woes.

Ramesh - Awesome wicket keeper and a typical test opening batsman. Most of the times i would open the innings with him with a prayer in my lips that i should not be run out by him (50% of the times when we opened together, he takes my wicket). He is our Steve waugh, he gets into the skin of the opponents by sledging them real hard. Once during a match he was casually strolling outside the crease at non striker's end and i played a ball straight to the bowler. The bowler as if he was expecting it, coolly went and ran him out. This bugger Coolly comes to us and says "machi, velila ninaen out panitaan" (Mate, i was standing out, he ran me out). Lucky him he wasnt blasted by all of us.

Sai - He is the most aggressive guy of our team in taunting the opponents and most of time me too. More of a batsman than a bowler but on his day manages to bowl few nice overs hopefully without those waist high full tosses. Once he was captaining the match, and he brought himself to bowl the first over(i used to be totally against that idea, as i used to be worried about the batsman's head) much to the opposition of all of us. He was hit for 3 huge sixes and the opponents got 25% of the score to chase in that over over itself. at the end of the over, he came and says "I think i should not bowl another over". I was like "buddy, you should never bowl one more over in your life".

Sridhar - Our McGrath but once in a while surprises the batsman with his really short pitched deliveries which the batsman had to invariably wait for days to go past him and not to forget his batting skills which even Bradman would be proud of ;-) pun intended. God only knows how he manages to avoid the ball touching the bat or his body, no matter how much hard the bowler tries. Neither he gets out, nor tries to score runs. When he bats u can ask all the fielders to go for a break except the 2 on "straight V" either side of the bowler. Once we were playing gully cricket and the equation for opponents was like 1 ball 6 runs to win. Any hit to any of the house was out, the only place where a batsman can score a 6 was a narrow patch on the offside across the road (not more than 2 feet stretch, with houses on both ends). With this near impossible situation he bowled a magic ball which only he can, the batsman turned, bent and hit for a six just over 3 fielders i had placed on that 2 feet stretch to save that six.

Swami, he is the man of our team, he bats awesomely well some days or he goes of to his shell scoring those binary digit scores 0s and 1s, but he is the man behind the enthusiasm of the players and the confidence booster for the players..err...did i forget something...yes i guess so...when i meant players it was the opposite team players. He comes and bowls the batsman hits him for a massive six and he turns towards the batsman ends up saying "Great shot batsman..Keep going.." without a tinge of remorse much to irritate me n our team mates. He used to come to our place and say "Buddy, i have fixed a bet match for 50Rs" when we go to the ground, he would go put toss with opponents and then come to us and say wait i will get some players to fill the playing 11 and would start searching for the remaining 7-8 players from young kids playing nearby.

Giri, another good keeper and a good bat. We used to call him the Dravid of our team for his decent stroke making and those technically sound way of batting. But, it was a jinx that he always performed excellently in our local matches but in tournaments or matches he could not bring the same magic. May be the pressure put on him by so called front line batsmen :) hehe that's us. But, still he manages to give his best with the pressures to give us a face saving with decent scores.

Harish- We use him more as a commentator than as player. He idolises Sunil Joshi the left arm spinner from Karnataka and would die supporting him. He gives commentaries when our team bats and sometimes even on the fields. He was our Harsha Bhogle, Tony Grieg, Boycott, Benaud and who not....and trust me he is really awesome in that. We tried our best to convince him to take commentary as profession but he never listened. He would always come to play with one condition that he should get batting and bowling :P never he gets hehehe

Vijay - Our team's child prodigy well that's what we say to him to make up the eleven when we run out of players. He started his career with us as ball boy and later becoming a mainstay in the team when we do not have 11(most of the times we wont, hehehe). Nowadays, he calls me for some matches to play for "HIS" team and first thing he says to me is "Anna, I am the captain" just to make sure who takes the call.

All in all what fun we all had, winning bet matches and buying samosa with the winner's money and later fights for missing someone for this samosa party.

[P.S: Not sure how much the readers could relate n enjoy this post, but i am sure the guys in this post if they read, would have a hearty laugh. I was having a hearty laugh when i was posting this. Brought back nice memories. Guys, miss all the fun playing with u all.]