The game of cricket is filled with ups and downs, with elation and disappointment, and with tangibles and intangibles. One such intangible is the ability to focus when the chips are down. A team is chosen carefully by the management based on the players' form and talent. It is up to the player, to perform on the field and validate the management's faith in him. Though it is a valid point that every batting or bowling position carries the same importance before the game starts, the pressure indices change as the game progresses. Pressure can be felt by both the bowlers and the batsmen - for a bowler the pressure is higher if he has just been hit for a boundary, or if he is bowling to a 'set' batsman, and for a batsman its higher when the asking rate crawls up and/or the wickets on the other end keep falling down. Different people respond differently to adversity. There are some who are calm no matter what; some who play with a 'nothing-to-lose' attitude; and others who plain crumble and implode. The only way to get past the fear, and focus, is through experience. Focusing when under pressure, and the level of focus the players can conjure up during such situations is the estimator of how good a team is, or how far it will go in a tournament. Talent and form can only carry the team within inches of the finish line. To cross the finish line, you need the intangibles that are clarity, concentration and courage.
Play with heart, play with courage, and play with the will to win!
Go Blitz!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Monkeys are Blitzing - Part 3 : highs and LOWS
Editor's Note : The reason so many people start their day reading the newspaper from back to front is probably because sport highlights human achievement and triumph, while the front pages are often a treatise on man's numerous failings. That's Earl Warren's thinking anyway. Whatever the reason, sport, much like music and poetry, has the ability to touch the human soul. Little wonder then that so many hundreds of individuals organize themselves into amateur sports teams to engage in pursuits that have little material gain. Blitz is no different.
Having received our Cricbay schedule, excitement pulsed through the group. In order to hit the ground running, Hardik had lined up a couple of practice games for us. The first of them was against a powerhouse team known as the Hattrickers. But, a fairy tale beginning wasn't ours to be. We came up second best despite putting up a tough fight anchored by Mountu's effort with the bat. Knowing it was our maiden game, one of the Hattrickers, Chakri, put in his 2 cents. He said we had what it took to make the Platinum cup while cautioning us that we were in the same group as The Kings - one of the strongest teams in bay area cricket. To top of the bitter-sweet nature of the day, Barry sustained an injury, keeping him out of the first two games. It was a big loss as he was the Monkeys' only known triple threat. But we had to work with what we had and believed we still had a strong and talented team. Filled with expectation, we eagerly awaited our Cricbay debut.
The Monkeys' first encounter was against the Chargers. Bankim and Akshay played the part of 'statsgurus' during the first season, providing us with valuable information on our opponents. I was a bit nervous given that this was my first 20 over tennis ball match and felt that I needed to lead by example. Lady Luck was to smile on me that day as the coin fell in our favor. Choosing to stick with our strength (it still remains), I opted to field first. Whether it was nerves or inexperience or a combination of both, our bowlers felt it and put in a below par bowling performance. The batting strength of the Chargers exacerbated the situation and we were staring at a huge score at the half way mark.
I gave the team a pep talk stating that we could chase down the target comfortably if we batted sensibly and applied ourselves. However, harmonizing thought and action wouldn't be something we'd achieve that day, losing our opening game. But the loss was not without its proverbial silver lining. Puneet, opening the innings for us, carried his bat compiling a fine 50 in the process. A new star was born.
For the rest of the season, wins were few and far between. We learned from our losses and improved, but we were never quite "there". Mountu and Barry were turning out great partnerships, Kasat was Mr. Efficient and Hardik and I were trying our best to maintain our reputations as hitters. Puneet continued to impress, while Avi's pace was increasing by the ball and everybody was contributing their bit to the team. Our most memorable victory in the first season was against the Kings(http://tinyurl.com/l4staz), which remains our best victory ever.
One off wins and multiple losses took their toll on the team, with confidence slowly, but surely ebbing. On many occasions, the team management had trouble fielding a XI, and we had to beg and coax people to sign up. I have to commend Hardik for always keeping his cool, and must admit that my level of tolerance was much lower than his. His work behind the scenes for the Monkeys went unnoticed, but I would like to take this moment to express my gratitude to our first manager.
Tired of losing, the team's mantra had to change. It had to go from playing for fun, to playing to win while having fun. There had to be a feedback loop between winning and having fun. Hard decisions had to be taken. The performance of the team had to be assessed. New talent had to be recruited to push us to a higher level. An afternoon of light conversation with Puneet, Avi, Hardik, Shireesh and Mizzou would turn into one of our most important discussions.
Content : Arun
Editing : Rahul
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Pre-Match Review Vs Syndicate CC
It is that exciting last phase of 2009 Round I playoffs, where some teams are battling till the last game to find a spot in Platinum qualifiers whereas some teams have comfortably made it to Top 32. With one game in hand, Blitz CC finds themselves them in the latter half; courtsey good team performance, some individual brilliance and inspiring captaincy. Sunday, June 28th promises nothing less than a cracker of a game, with it being a do or die situation for Syndicate CC whereas Blitz CC trying to get one up on all opponents who defeated them last season.
Match Details
Sunday, June 28th
Start time: 8:30 am PST
Ground: Cupertino Middle School
Current Form
Syndicate CC: L L L W W
Stage is set for Syndicate CC to take up the challenge and overcome the defeats they have been suffering in their last three encounters. It is a must win game for Syndicate CC to keep their hopes alive for the platinum playoffs. A win for them will put the in the contenders list with Exterminators and Aryans CC for the last berth in platinum playoffs from Group F.
Whereas a defeat ensures a certain exit.
Blitz CC: L W W W L
Although a loss doesnot hurt Blitz's platinum playoff chances they wont be happy with anything less than a win. Especially after a defeat against GSCC, Blitzers have been eager to get back to their winning habits. A win against Syndicate CC will not only be a confidence booster but will also go a long way in putting Blitz CC in a favorable group for platinum playoffs.
Watch out for
Lokesh: With a total of 19 wickets at a staggering strike rate of 1.95!, he features as the leading wicket taker in the Cricbay Top 20 wicket takers for 2009 season. Not much information is available in his profile regarding his bowling style, scorecards reveal him being brought as first change by Syndicate CC.
Head-to-Head
Last time these two teams faced each other was Round 1 playoffs 2008 when Blitzers were called Bhajjis Monkeys. Electing to bat first after winning the toss, Monkeys displayed a miserable batting performance managing to score only 45 runs at the loss of 10 wickets in 16.1 overs, inspite of a convincing win & thus the confidence against Kings in their previous game! It was too easy a target for Syndicate who managed to score them off in just 12.1 overs with
a loss of 5 wickets.
This was a game when all the "Tambis"(5) from Bhajjis Monkeys made ducks!
Finally, after a years wait, Blitzers have a chance to settle their score against Syndicate CC coming Sunday.
“It's not so much revenge, but I think you want to hold on to a little of that just for extra motivation.”
Go Blitz!!
Jigar
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Monkeys are Blitzing - Prologue
Of all the things said and written about victory, that it brings with it a sense of perspective is certainly our favorite. Perspective can be quite paradoxical. On the one hand, with it comes a clarity of thought that enables a rational dissection of a team's strengths and weaknesses, unclouded by emotion that often accompanies failure, paving the way for further progress. Little wonder then that teams believe winning can become a habit. On the other hand however, it evokes feelings of nostalgia - of days gone by, when things weren't necessarily as pleasant as they are in the present. With a successful season behind us, it is the nostalgic in us that looks back at the days gone by, when we were but a motley group of enthusiastic cricketers.
Rahul Iyer
Rahul Iyer
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
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
Friday, June 12, 2009
Milestones
Instead of doing the usual match analysis, I thought of covering some milestones which
our players are approaching. Probably we all can celebrate it on the field with our famous wide chant when they achieve it.
Puneet - This Captain of ours (called Captain Charisma by few ;) ) crossed 400 Cricbay
career runs in the game against Cougars! Congrats captain, way to go.
Milestones:
1. He needs 12 more runs to reach the 100 run mark this season.
Akshay - Mr VC, is definitely one of the well behaved player on the field. I have never seen
him loose his temper on field, always calm and collected.
He has in fact, crossed quite a few milestones in past few games.
Milestones:
1. Crossed 50 Cricbay career runs in game against Daredevils.
2. Game against Cougars was his silver jubilee game for Blitz.
3. Already achieved 25 fielding dismissals!
Kudos VC, way to go!
Kasat- I don't know whether to call him Right arm leg-break/off-break or medium pace, I think it is fair to address him as 'Right Arm Unplayable' ;)
Milestones:
1. Needs 4 more wickets to achieve 25 Cricbay Career Wickets & 15 wickets this season.
Avinash - Hit Avi-Lee for a good shot and don't expect the next ball to be any lower than your
face ;). I guess we are missing those beamers and especially what I call the 'Avi-Roar'. Get
well soon dude and start roaring.
Milestones:
1. Needs one wicket to claim 50 Cricbay career wickets.(Now who doesn't know that!!)
Aditya - Kickass allrounder! He is one intimidating bowler any batsman can face, especially
when he bowls a beautiful ball to you, he will walk towards you like a bull and look at the ground where the ball had pitched!
If i have to give him a nick it would definitely be 'Mean Killer'!
Milestones:
1. Needs MOM in the game against GSCC to make it a Hatrick of MOMs.
2. Needs 20 more runs to achieve 50 runs this season.
Kartik - He claims his nickname to be Kaata, but personally i would like to call him Practice man ;). There are times when i reach home after a game, check my mails to already see a practice invite for next weekend from Practice Man :D
Milestones:
1. Needs 26 more runs to achieve 200 Cricbay Career runs
2. Needs 6 more wickets to claim 75 Cricbay Career wickets
Satish - Likes to be called Jonty & has lived up to it by some marvellous effort in the field apart from his Wall-like defense techniques and pre-meditated leaves ;).
Milestones:
1.Needs 1 more run! to achieve 100 Cricbay Career runs
2. Needs 3 more runs to achieve 50 runs for this season (hoping to see him achieve both in
the next game he plays)
Montu - I enjoy watching this swashbuckling batsman in full flow. Though most times i have
to watch him from dug-out :(, i bet it is lot of fun to be on other end and watch him
run-blazing.
Milestones:
1. Needs 15 more runs to achieve 200 Cricbay Career runs
2. Needs 6 more runs to achieve 50 runs for this season.
Arun - Now we all know and have talked about "Coach-Arun-Captain's"six hitting abilities.
it is given that he can connect and clear fields at will .But what is interesting for me is
his "Coach (read agony aunt)" role. I think i know a few players who were/are using his
coaching services.(I think he will kill me for this ;) )
The list of players has been kept confidential for privacy reasons :D
Milestones:
1. Needs 2 more wickets to achieve 25 Cricbay Career Wickets
2. Need 32 runs to reach the 200 Cricbay Career runs mark.
Go Blitz!!
~j
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Monkeys are Blitzing now - Part 1 : The Birth of 'Beasts'
I will use our blog to describe our cricketing journey from the 'Beasts' in 2007 June to Blitz currently. I am writing this blog from my perspective. The facts I present might be off the mark, and I urge you to correct them. After all, memory is not perfect, and history is written by the winners. This is part 1 of the series.
It was June 2007. I had just landed in the bay area, and wasn't feeling too good about leaving all my friends in Ohio. After all, I had spent 5 winters in Ohio. In Ohio, you get to play cricket only for 3-4 months because of the weather, and I had heard my friends in the bay area boast about the weather here. I was looking forward to a weekend of casual cricket. I was sharing an apartment temporarily with Arul who was my grad school buddy, and asked him one saturday if anybody he knew played cricket. He made a few calls and we decided to leave for the ground in the afternoon. I used to play organized cricket in Cincinnati even thought it was only for 3-4 months, and we usually played with our corporate teams, which meant that the whole setup was very formal. We drove to this park, called Washington park, and I saw 5-6 guys playing cricket there. They were using the end of the baseball ground as the wickets and it was 3 times as wide as our regular stumps. I was first introduced to Arvind (who plays for Dazzlers), and then to our first fast bowler Shireesh Mettapalle. Apart from these 2, I also met the now famous Iris Gujju gang : Hardik, the huge guy, Rushabh, the tall dude, Siddharth the quiet chap, and Akshay the puny one :). There was also GG who was the butt of jokes in that gang. It was a good enough crowd for casual cricket and they went over the rules, and we started playing. Thats when I realized that these guys were all really good. Hardik was especially very agile, and that was something I did not expect. We had a good game of cricket with Kasat and Rushabh hitting the stumps on multiple occasions from various angles, and Hardik swatting every loose ball for a boundary. We met again for cricket a week later and I got to know the gang a little better. I found out that apart from being good cricketers, this was a really fun gang, mainly due to Hardik who always kept things light with some good natured ribbing directed towards GG. We decided to meet regularly on weekends to play cricket, and we played on both days on a few weekends.
Arvind came up with the idea of registering for a 6s tournament called the Bata cup, and he felt that we had a decent team to compete for that tournament. There were 7 of us - Arvind,Shireesh,Hardik,Rushabh,Kasat,Akshay and myself and we decided to use a rotation system to play the games(the birth of rotation!). Arvind registered our team name as 'Beasts', and Monkeys version zero was born. Shireesh was the captain of this team, and he was the first captain of the Monkeys! Kasat pulled out of the tournament due to issues at work, and we roped in Tarun who was here for his internship from USC (Thanks to USC for sending so many quality cricketers our way). Tarun was a hard hitter of the ball, and could clear any boundary. We were confident about a good show in the tournament. As we were unaware of the level of competition in the bay area, we thought we would advance easily. Our first game against FUN 6 was an easy victory with Shireesh taking a hattrick, and Akshay picking up 4 dismissals behind the stumps (this was the birth of our current keeper for blitz). We were elated then, only to walk back dejected 5 hours later, as we lost to the eventual champs, the spartans in the next game. Hardik and Tarun batted really well to get us out of an early mess, and Rushabh bowled his heart out, but in the end we were short. Apart from a minor mishap where Hardik wanted to pummel a particular dude wearing a blue tooth headset, we were reasonably satisfied as we were 1-1 at the end of the day.
This created an interest to play competitive cricket in the bay area. Sunnyvale cric group was formed. Our group grew from 6-7 on the weekends to 20-30 at one point. We got in friends, friends of friends and passersby to play with us. There was this dude, who used to play with us, also got us water bottles for one session, but nobody knew who he was. One fine saturday...
TO BE CONTINUED
It was June 2007. I had just landed in the bay area, and wasn't feeling too good about leaving all my friends in Ohio. After all, I had spent 5 winters in Ohio. In Ohio, you get to play cricket only for 3-4 months because of the weather, and I had heard my friends in the bay area boast about the weather here. I was looking forward to a weekend of casual cricket. I was sharing an apartment temporarily with Arul who was my grad school buddy, and asked him one saturday if anybody he knew played cricket. He made a few calls and we decided to leave for the ground in the afternoon. I used to play organized cricket in Cincinnati even thought it was only for 3-4 months, and we usually played with our corporate teams, which meant that the whole setup was very formal. We drove to this park, called Washington park, and I saw 5-6 guys playing cricket there. They were using the end of the baseball ground as the wickets and it was 3 times as wide as our regular stumps. I was first introduced to Arvind (who plays for Dazzlers), and then to our first fast bowler Shireesh Mettapalle. Apart from these 2, I also met the now famous Iris Gujju gang : Hardik, the huge guy, Rushabh, the tall dude, Siddharth the quiet chap, and Akshay the puny one :). There was also GG who was the butt of jokes in that gang. It was a good enough crowd for casual cricket and they went over the rules, and we started playing. Thats when I realized that these guys were all really good. Hardik was especially very agile, and that was something I did not expect. We had a good game of cricket with Kasat and Rushabh hitting the stumps on multiple occasions from various angles, and Hardik swatting every loose ball for a boundary. We met again for cricket a week later and I got to know the gang a little better. I found out that apart from being good cricketers, this was a really fun gang, mainly due to Hardik who always kept things light with some good natured ribbing directed towards GG. We decided to meet regularly on weekends to play cricket, and we played on both days on a few weekends.
Arvind came up with the idea of registering for a 6s tournament called the Bata cup, and he felt that we had a decent team to compete for that tournament. There were 7 of us - Arvind,Shireesh,Hardik,Rushabh,Kasat,Akshay and myself and we decided to use a rotation system to play the games(the birth of rotation!). Arvind registered our team name as 'Beasts', and Monkeys version zero was born. Shireesh was the captain of this team, and he was the first captain of the Monkeys! Kasat pulled out of the tournament due to issues at work, and we roped in Tarun who was here for his internship from USC (Thanks to USC for sending so many quality cricketers our way). Tarun was a hard hitter of the ball, and could clear any boundary. We were confident about a good show in the tournament. As we were unaware of the level of competition in the bay area, we thought we would advance easily. Our first game against FUN 6 was an easy victory with Shireesh taking a hattrick, and Akshay picking up 4 dismissals behind the stumps (this was the birth of our current keeper for blitz). We were elated then, only to walk back dejected 5 hours later, as we lost to the eventual champs, the spartans in the next game. Hardik and Tarun batted really well to get us out of an early mess, and Rushabh bowled his heart out, but in the end we were short. Apart from a minor mishap where Hardik wanted to pummel a particular dude wearing a blue tooth headset, we were reasonably satisfied as we were 1-1 at the end of the day.
This created an interest to play competitive cricket in the bay area. Sunnyvale cric group was formed. Our group grew from 6-7 on the weekends to 20-30 at one point. We got in friends, friends of friends and passersby to play with us. There was this dude, who used to play with us, also got us water bottles for one session, but nobody knew who he was. One fine saturday...
TO BE CONTINUED
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