Cricket

By Likith Manjunatha

Hi, lets start with my introduction first. My name is Likith and I have loved playing cricket since my dad enrolled me into a coaching to improve my physical fitness. At first, I didn’t love playing it, I just used to go just to satisfy my parents, it felt like a chore sometimes. I would rather be on my bed scrolling through my phone or playing video games that didn’t exhaust me nor did anyone laugh at me for being an amateur in it, kids half my age were better than me because they were playing cricket from a long amount of time and they actually took it seriously. I started to love cricket when I started taking it seriously. And I started taking it seriously when I was most humiliated. I had just asked my coach to promote me to the net where my age people were practicing, I was in the group of small kids, a group of kids who had just started playing and me who was playing since the past 2 and a half years. That itself was humiliating enough but it didn’t bother me since I never cared about the sport. But things took to a turn when I had asked my coach to promote me to the senior’s net and he replied with “let’s see how you perform today and on the basis of that I will promote you”. And sure, enough I played the worst I have ever played, we get to play about 25 balls each and I got out about 20 times, so yeah it was really bad.

I had humiliated myself so badly, that I had motivated myself to show that I was better than everyone, so I started to work on myself, day after day I worked harder than everyone, using the humiliation and the anger as fuel I motivated myself every time I wanted to give up.

A year later the hard worked showed, it was a do or die match for our team to stay alive in the tournament, everyone had lost hopes, it was me and a couple of bowlers who were left to bat. My left fore finger was swollen while I was fielding. I hid the pain knowing that if my coach saw it, he would pull me from the game. When it was my turn to bat, my stomach was in a mess, either it was from the paratha I ate earlier or my nerves were acting up. I gulped, walked out to the crease and took my stance, I had taken my stance so many times I could do it if you woke me up in the middle of the night with ease. The situation was not too bad, but it was bad enough for my team to start packing up, they had no faith in me. I have had this feeling so many times that it didn’t bother me anymore. With that I knew I had nothing more to lose so I just focused on the ball and then the next ball, and before I knew it, I was closing it off. The game was winnable. I just needed to score 15 runs in 6 balls, it has been done before, just not by me. I was never in a game finishing like situation, the nerves crept back up, I missed the first ball because my legs were locked up. 15 in 5, I took a knee, calmed down and got back up, stood in the same place I had for the last 30 mins and was prepared to send the ball to the boundary. I timed it perfectly, the ball rolled past covers and runs needed was 11 in 4 balls. The next ball I guided it into no mans land and stole 2 runs, 9 in 3. “I could still lose, I would be humiliated again, people will laugh at me” these were the words running through my head, and there is no way you can face a ball coming at you at 110 km/hr when your mind is in this state. I missed again. 9 in 2. There is no way I am losing again, the next ball I just close my eyes and swung the 1.2 kilo bat. The ball edged and was falling right under fine leg, the fielder was wobbling, not knowing where it was going to land, he fumbled and pushed the ball to the rope. 4 runs and I could finally breathe again. That was the longest 30 sec of my life. The equation now 5 in 1, God I hate nail biting matches like this. Watching them on tv is a different thing but when its your life, your pride on the line it puts things into a different perspective. The bowler takes his run up, hops, does his bowling action and releases the ball, I am in my usual stance waiting, the ball pitches a feet in front of me, I have played this type of ball almost a million times while practicing, I move my front leg towards the line of the ball, while lifting my bat to generate momentum and swing, I time it perfectly and it hits the middle of the bat, the angle in which is hit it is great to send it over the boundary. Now I run towards the non-strikers end, I notice that the non-striker has given up on running and I do too, no use because the ball is right under mid-wicket and the fielder has already 5 catches under his belt. The ball is so high up its barely starting its descent. The ball drops behind the fielder, behind the rope, but no one celebrates yet. In this kind of matches the umpire gives the last call, all eyes dart towards him, who now is looking at his phone updating the score, after about 5 secs, I hate how time just stops during moments like these, he starts to raise both his hands signaling a maximum, everyone jumps and shouts before he could raise his hands completely, I am in awe and stuck in the same position for the past 2 mins. The whole team runs over to me and tackles me down and I can not believe it. The van ride home was peaceful, and full of fun. People were treating as their peer and not just ignoring me completely. Cricket then proceeded to become my passion and I exceled at it.

By Likith Manjunatha