Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Indians in town

First things first. The young guys – Lasith, Ricky and Ayesh – have been
supporting the club by volunteering for a number of activities even though
these activities do not include staring at good looking blondes. The three of
them have already done umpiring and canteen duty and deserve recognition
for their thankless efforts. The old guys have promised to volunteer for all
activities that include staring at blondes. Charuka has agreed to dye his hair
blond. The old guys now say they need to spend more time with kids.

Second things second. As you will recall, this writer has been on strike ever
since the negotiations with management resulted in a three-fold pay rise
which was deemed completely unacceptable. However, due to the incredible
team performance this last weekend, this special report has been drafted to
spread the good news. Future such reports will only be drafted when the team
performs in a similar manner.

Ok, now to the cricket.

Everyone from the subcontinent has been walking with their chests out and
noses in the air after the thrashing dished out on the weekend.

For those of you who were there, you know what I’m talking about. We
ended up winning the match by an innings and some 200 runs! Yes, I am not
talking about our brothers back home, I am talking about the brothers in the
Parramatta district cricket.

On the face of it, it sounds like an incredible performance by the team. In
reality, it wasn’t. The team did hardly anything. Two guys in the team pretty
much did everything while the others contributed with a lot of clapping and
sledging of the two guys who did all the work.

The obvious question is who those two star performers were. Well, as
Sherlock Holmes would say, “Elementary Dr Watson. Let’s get there through
a process of elimination.“

We won the toss and chose to bat – simply because the skipper couldn’t be
bothered bowling. The usual openers did the usual thing. One opener was
back in the hut before the first over was over. The second opener followed not
much later.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with our team tactics, don’t be fooled.
This is a tried and tested strategy that saw us win the grand finals last year.
Every time the openers don’t do anything, the team posts a huge score and
we win in style. The senior brains trusts of the team settled on this strategy
after trying numerous other strategies that failed. This was the one strategy
they could count on to occur every match.

And once again the strategy worked like a charm. One down batsman
Charuka scored his mandatory 13.5 runs in 3.5 balls before aiming at a bird
and only managing to swat a fly. He handed his bat to Rajitha. Actually, he
had to first use his bat to hit Rajitha on the helmut to wake him up when

he got back to the hut and found Rajitha snoring away. Again for those of
you unfamiliar with the team tactics, this is a standard occurrence. Rajitha
then bounced into gear, grabbed the bat and offered a little resistance to the
opening bowlers who had yet to warm up.

Before long captain Rav was at the crease eyeing the boundary. As you might
recall, all our top batsmen have a habit of eyeing the boundary very carefully
as soon as they get out to the middle. It is usually to make sure they don’t trip
over the rope on their way back which usually happens in a couple of balls.

Rajitha eventually gave way to Ayesh after scoring a few runs and not
succeeding in running his partner or himself out. Ayesh was pumped, but
then again he always is. In Hayden fashion Ayesh dispatched the bowling
to all parts. This resulted in a change of strategy for the opponents. They
decided rest their opening bowlers. The problem was they only had opening
bowlersy. Ayesh got all his Christmas presents at once and was like a kid in
a candy store. He hit a four, followed by a six. However, unlike some other
team members, he was very unselfish and decided to allow the remaining
batsmen an opportunity to enjoy the pies being chucked out there. He felt we
had enough runs and gifted a catch. We were on about 90 runs.

He was right – we did have enough runs on the board. In fact we had enough
runs to bowl them out twice with. Unfortunately only Ayesh knew that.

As was usually the case, the senior brains lack of trust started was busy
revising the team’s expected total to 95. After the first three overs we had our
eyes set on 40 runs all out. We had now gone through three revisions and
were hopeful of making 95.

Someone forgot to tell the skipper that we would have been happy with 95.
Or may be he thought we wanted 95 from him. Whatever the case, he took
matters into his own hands and asked Prasad to sit tight on one end while he
despatched everything into the trees. Between overs he almost despatched
the water boy into the trees as well – he was swinging wildly. One of the
neighbours got so concerned about the damage being done to the roofs in the
area that he dobbed Rav in to the Wild Life Protection Agency. There were
reports of a few birds dropping out of the sky.

Another neighbour thought it was a better idea to send a peace offering
instead of upsetting Rav any further. He personally delivered some masala
tea and Indian sweets. Rav, however, was unmoved.

Finally Prasad got wind of the refreshments in the pavilion and he hooked –
he ran back to the hut faster than we have ever seen him run before. Rickster
was more than happy about this development. He ran out to the middle as
fast as Prasad had run off. Some of the opposition fielders had blinked and
not even realised that Ricky had replaced Prasad.

Ricky gave Rav good support. Like the rest of us, he stood and cheered
Rav’s every shot and managed to duck out of the way when Rav’s bullets

occasionally came his way. Then he too felt it was time for another cup of tea
and headed back in a very unselfish manner.

Sam then strolled out and pledged his support to Rav. Unfortunately for Sam,
the umpire on duty was one of Sam’s best disciples and the very first ball
that Sam faced he was given out. No one ever found out why Sam was given
out, but Sam said he had no issues with the decision and was actually very
proud of his student. He said it is a proud moment for all masters when the
day comes that one of their students outshines the master. Sam said he was
really impressed with how quickly this umpire was able to draw his ringer out
of his pocket and raise it without provocation. It all happened even before he
could blink. Sam was seen talking to the umpire after the match getting a few
pointers – literally. He was later seen practicing the quick draw in the car park.
The team is bracing itself for the repercussions of this.

This left the job of supporting Rav to his century in the hands of Amid and
Pranav. Please note that when Amid showed up to our first match he was
asked if he batted, to which he promptly said no. He was then asked what
type of bowler he was and he said he didn’t do that either. While most team
managers would have been stumped by this, we signed him up immediately
cause we knew we had found an equal peer.

His orders were to hold up one end while Rav blasted his way from 50 to 100
at the other end. Amidst this storm, Amid had other ideas (pun intended).
Before the scorers had time to write his name down in the book he blasted his
way to 44. Nirav managed to get enough strike to score his maiden century
for the team. He then clobbered a few more and headed back for his tea and
sweets.

Meanwhile Amid was left hanging on 44. Pranav was now given orders to
support Amid to his 50. Pranav said no problem. He too, however, had other
ideas. He started pelting the ball to all parts as well. Amid was now edging
close to his 100. Pranav was pumping his way to 50. The senior brains lack of
trust then decided to put an end to this blatant lack of respect and inability to
follow orders. More importantly the top order realised their spots on the side
were in serious jeopardy and quickly declared.

With all forecasts out the window and 314 runs on the board, the goal was
to get a wicket before the end of play. The scorers had a bit of trouble
tallying the scores because they had never had to count that high before.

Rav who was as fresh as a spring chicken took the new ball. The only
problem was he was the only bowler on the side who could chuck the ball
faster than he could walk. He said he was too tired to bowl from both sides,
so we asked Lasith to take the other side, considering he contributed nothing
with the bat – even with the new revised version of the DL formula that now
factors in what the batsman had for dinner the previous night and whether or
not they had a good night’s sleep, he managed to score himself only 2 runs.

We did get three wickets before the end of play and suffice it to say, all the

wickets came from one end and the runs from the other end. The following
week, the remaining seven wickets came in no time. Nirav who continued to
bowl this time decided to give Amid the ball from the other end. After Amid
showed us what he meant by not being able to bat, we figured his not being
able to bowl would be our best opening option. As expected, Amid decided
to add to his 75 runs with the bat by sending four batsmen back in quick
procession.

Before Nirav could consider a second change bowling plan, we had them
all out. We asked them to bat again. Once again, before Nirav had time
to consider a bowling change the innings was wrapped up. Lasith took a
stunning catch where he ran, dived, got up, ran again, dived again and then
the ball fell into his right palm. It was spectacular. So much so, that later in the
day when Las got another couple of catches, he refused to take them saying
he did not want to lower his standards.

Nirav ended up with 5 for one in the second innings following his 6 for not
many in the first. That was 5 wickets for one run, by the way.

Nirav and Amid thanked everyone else for coming and cheering them on. We
ended the match with a couple of hours to spare and were considering putting
them in again, but someone mentioned that the Indian match was on TV so
everyone rushed off.

So as mentioned earlier, while the performance sounded like a great team
effort, it wasn’t. The line up for next match will only be Rav and Amid. Don’t
expect a match report from that match, cause neither of them can write! In all
fairness to the rest of the team – all that clapping did take a bit of work. Well
done boyz. How’s zhat?

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