The great stadium grew quiet as the Great Batsman started his walk towards the wicket. To be sure there were a few greetings, a few ‘best of lucks’ as he walked down the steps of the pavilion, but not the standing ovation or even heavy applause which he was habituated to. He could also hear some subdued murmurs from the crowd and he could well imagine what those would be. ‘Should he be continuing at this stage?’, ‘Should he not make way for others who could serve the game better’? No doubt he himself had felt some qualms when he had decided to play this match, but all that was in the past now as he strode to the wicket. What should matter now was this innings, here and now! The seasoned warrior in him was ready to take a fresh guard.
But try as he would, he could not
wipe out the memories of last two innings of his. Both those innings were
deeply etched on his mind, a mind which had been hailed as the finest among his
trade. It was said that every ball he had ever faced and every ball he had ever
bowled had been recorded in his prodigious memory. But sometimes having a good
memory can hurt; and no memory was as painful as those last two innings.
The first of those innings, he remembered, he
had approached with a sinking feeling anyway. The opponent team was in top
form. The opposing captain was a firebrand who made it a point to lead from the
front and with an aggro which took one’s breath away. And true to his
reputation, he had taken the ball in his own hand to try and settle the contest
himself. The Great Batsman had taken guard, confident that he would be able to
weather the storm like the numerous ones he had battled earlier. His team may
not win the match, but he would surely find some way to keep himself afloat.
Not for nothing he was also known as the Great Survivor. But he was in for a
surprise this time. The first ball itself was a chest-on delivery, clearly accentuating the
broad chest the opposing captain was famed for, and before the Great Batsman
could figure that the full length delivery must be an in-swinging yorker, the
ball had made a mess of his woodwork. A golden duck, the Great Batsman muttered
as he made his lonely walk back to the hut. As luck would have it, none of his
team-mates had also fared much better, he felt relieved. Individual misery, he
had observed, may not do much for team-spirit but can surely be a little more acceptable
when everybody was almost equally miserable.
He had approached the second of
the two innings with a little more confidence. The pitch was different this
time and he had had a good say in preparation of the wicket; the curator and
the entire ground support staff were his men. But here too he had come a cropper.
Although the opposing captain was not playing, he seemed to have tutored his team
well. A sharp rising delivery aimed at his mid-riff and the Great Batsman had
to take evasive action, lobbed a simple catch which was gobbled up by the forward
short-leg. Two golden ducks in a row! The Great Batsman could see the writing
on the wall; the scholarly editorials, the tongue-in-cheek spoofs and downright
banal cartoons asking him to move on and make way for the youngsters.
He needed to break the jinx and
score some runs. It didn’t really matter what the match was. He decided to play
safe and chose a local tournament where he had been an unquestioned champion
some time ago before he had chosen to concentrate on higher levels of the game.
So the game was set.
All these thoughts flashed
through his mind as the Great Batsman took his guard. He knew that the opposing
team had no great pace attack which had done him in in last two innings. Still
he had prepared himself well, trying to leave nothing to chance. The bowler was
an unknown quantity, supposed to be a leg-spinner. It was reported that he had
been recently coached by a guru who was not really known to play cricket or
have ever played cricket. For a mediocre attack, surprisingly the field set
had been an aggressive one. “Are these guys really hoping to hustle me into
being too defensive and make a mistake”? The Great one chuckled to himself. A
slip, a gully, a silly-point and two short-legs. It was the two short-legs
which alerted the Great Batsman. The leg-spinner must be planning to send down
a googly and hope for a bat-pad. The Great Batsman smiled to himself. Little
did the opposition know about his familiarity and familial connection with
leg-spinners and googly bowlers. He was cool as the season with clear skies and ready to show his power. He was eager to face the bowler now.
The stadium had gone all silent. “Right
arm over” said the umpire and the Great Batsman watched the flighted back-of-the-palm delivery directed
slightly outside his off-stump float towards him. “Surely a googly”, thought
the Great Batsman, “but will this turn on such a dead pitch?” He played for the
googly anyway as any right thinking batsman would. The ball didn’t turn at all
(so much for the unprofessional coaches) and found a thick outside edge but
luckily for the Great Batsman the ball managed to squeeze through the slip and
the gully to the third man boundary. It was a four for sure but hardly an
authentic shot. Moral victory for the bowler but then, as Harsha Bhogle and
Ravi Shastri are fond of saying, “No matter how they come, runs on board is all
that matters.” The Great Batsman found no reason to disagree with that, not
when he was at the scoring end anyway. There was jubilation in the pavilion. The
jinx had been broken.
Major Crisis Averted successfully!
LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis
20th June 2015
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