The Monkeys are Blitzing - Part 2 : Make way for the Monkeys!

Our lukewarm performance in the Sixes tournament behind us, we were back to playing cricket on the weekends; the idea of an organized team far from anyone's mind. Akshay and Hardik had roped in friends from CMU and from USC - Mountu from USC, Rahul, Bankim and Sachin from CMU. Mountu, who was skinny at that time, had a penchant for coming down the pitch to slam straight 6s matching, blow for blow, Hardik's momentum with the bat. Bankim had the uncanny knack of generating swing with a hard tennis ball, and Rahul and Sachin seemed to bat sensibly. It was during my meeting with these folks that I heard about Arun 'Mizzou'.

Mizzou had "debuted" the previous weekend. A clean striker who cleared the boundary often, Mizzou had put the bowling attack to the sword. Out of town commitments meant I missed this encounter. When I eventually did meet him, I was not disappointed.

The next few weekends introduced us to Puneet. While obviously an excellent batsman and an able bowler to boot, the small boundaries we played with masked Puneet's abilities. We would have to wait until out first game against the Chargers in '08 to get a glimpse of Puneet's sheer talent. Puneet would later go on to captain us in our third season. Along with Puneet came his childhood friend Avinash. Shireesh, Kasat and Rushabh were our quickest bowlers back then. When Avi came on to bowl that first day, he upped the bar a few notches and then some! I have to admit that while batting, I largely swung blindly at him hoping that luck, divine intervention or anything in between would render my effort fruitful. Avi would later rank in the top four fastest bowlers in the Cricbay league. An unfortunate on field accident a few weeks later would keep Puneet away from the game for a couple of months. Avi wrapped up his internship and returned to NC State to finish up his degree. We also had Hardik's friend from work, Gaurav, join us. Gaurav was a bubbly dude who kept wickets, and was one of the most talkative (in a good way) keepers I had seen.

Back in the day, poker with my 'thambi' friends was a friday ritual. Two of my poker buddies Sriram and Ranjith were cricket enthusiasts and promised to show up, friends in tow. Ranjith declared that he was an opening bat and could bowl a little. Sriram, a person never short on enthusiasm, was clearly missing cricket a lot. He snapped up my invitation and that was our luckiest day. He is the foundation upon which blitz currently stands: a selfless individual, who puts team above all else, constantly striving to make us better.

One of Ranjith's friends was this reticent individual. Not saying much, he keenly observed the group, following whatever he was told. I asked him if he could bowl. He nodded and took the ball from me. Firing in six immaculate yorkers that over, he followed it up with an assault on the bowling that was nothing short of a massacre. I had never seen anyone assert themselves on the field like that. Our discussion later that evening centered on his talent, but much to our surprise and dismay, no one actually knew him. Two to three weeks later, we headed to Hot Breads on El Camino Real to top off an invigorating cricket session with some sumptuous snacks. It was there that we bumped into him again, and I wasted no time in getting his name and email address. He called himself Barry, short for Barathiraja, and said that he was interested in playing with us. At this point it occurred to all of us that we had a team! A team with no name was born that day at Hot Breads!!

Hardik took it upon himself to enquire about the leagues in the bay area and came up with the two options available: the TCA which had a few albeit strong teams, and Cricbay which was a relatively new league with more teams and more games on offer. I was misinformed about the TCA back then, and we decided to join Cricbay. I now play in both leagues, and feel that each league has something unique to offer, and claiming one is better than the other would only serve to do them both injustice.

The choice of name was left to the Iris gang, and they came up with the name Bhajji's Monkeys. Despite my initial reservations about the name, I agreed to back them up. Few of our team members, whose names I won't disclose, thought that the name was not one a serious cricket team should have. Having been voted captain in a poll that had all the fairness of a stereotypical Bihari election (or maybe nowadays, an Iranian one) courtesy Hardik and Rushabh, I laid down my stamp of approval. It was just a name and had nothing to do with our performance on the field, I claimed.

Our team was formed in January of 2008 -

BHAJJI's MONKEYS
Captain - Arun Ram
Vice Captain - Rushabh Vasa
Manager - Hardik

Our first team in no particular order

Siddharth, Akshay, Puneet, Avinash, Rahul, Bankim, Mountu,Sachin, Gaurav,Arun Mizzou, Shireesh, Barry, Sriram, Ranjith.

TO BE CONTINUED

Content : Arun Ram
Special Spin and Editing : Rahul Iyer