wow, whew and damn!

those are the three words that come to mind when i think about last weeks cricket match..

WOW due to two things:
a) Bakir - what a guy.. in the proverbial queue for talent up there, this guy somehow managed to be in the beginning of the line for everything.. I think it begins to insult him when lowly people such as me try and write an article on his talent -so ill do what ABMs do best - show the data and u can judge on ur own..

Coming in at 40/2, scored a brutal 46 in 33 balls (high-lights being the sixes off full tosses as if he were swatting a fly).. followed that up with 4-0-14-4 - incredible in a 20 ovr match! and then to add insult to injury and bundle it all in - he scored two brilliant runouts (of course with Tingo)

b) Our bowling/Fielding: More and more reminding me of the German WWII forces, well oiled, efficient and almost cold heartedly clinical.. Nitin, Bakir, Swappy, Paddu and the revelation of the day for me - Sudhakar, all bowled thier heart out and more importantly without losing the mind part of it.



Special mention to sudoku of course, I would never imagine any1 coming to play a match with the knee state that he has.. but never a complain, never a crib - always in the thick of action - great going buddy!

WHEW now..

lemme say that a few more times... WHEW!, WHEW! WHEW!

I finally scored a few.. very very scratchy and very over eager - but like paddu says, the score book carries no missed catches.. no swipes and misses.. i ended up with 47 (26) - 47 more than than my cumulative for the season!

DAMN!

Well, im not going to play a few matches now :( , this weekend is Fitris wedding in Jogjkta in Indo, Then going to India for 3 weeks so no cricket for a month.. it will be a good test of whether i can resist cricket next season (as per my retirement plans :)

Anyway, Raff is back, so is Esh and hopefully Venkat/Matt will play a few too.. and we should have a problem of plenty! ... will be waiting for Paddus email updates guys .. so keep them coming!

ahh and yes... do not raise questions on how my previous two blogs are contradictory!

Yesterday was an intersting day.. not in the same way id expected though..

For one, the rain gods decided that the dream run needed to stop, and as i say now, it was probably the only thing that couldve saved Kaybee.. Vikranth was visibly relieved and happy at the prospect of not having to cocntend with sriram, bakir, matt and paddu demolish him and his teams bowling attack... I for one was really looking forward to the match, and secretly hoping that I got another chance at the top of the order.. :p and more importantly hoping that Paddu would give me a bowl..

anyway, so we sat there and watched it pour and despite swappy and nitins valiant attempts to lure us onto the field for some practice..

and then came the part which I found interesting.. after a quick b/f at LN, we went for golf driving.. to the Bishan range, and it was fun to see the cricket team bond over non-cricket activities.. it was good to see the non-clinical Bakir as he miscued a shot and Paddu as he ironically ditched technique for pure might (the opposite of what he recommends in cricket!).. venkat of course, remained his calm self taking to it pretty well.. tingo continued his big hitting, easily clearing the 200 mt mark !

Then despite bakir and me hankering for a game of bowling/pool, Paddu and Venkat decided to live to thier middle age and went home.. just when we were seeing the spark of non-cricket bonding .. for the first time...

Which reminds me of what Mark (Brill) and me were talking.. we guys should spend more time off the field as well together.. for starters, we should eat lunch together after a game, even if its just at ceylon sports complex.. get in ur families for those who have them, and make it a sunday meal thing, rather than just finish the game, pack the kits and run ur own way..

For the last few weeks - ive thought long and hard and have finally decided.. this will be my last season of playing cricket.. it will be a challenge, but like they say, tough calls need to be made.. there will be so many places to go on the weekends - now that spunky is here, hopefully ill have a captive participant to my weekend breaks ;)

Also, ive realised that somewhere sometime it boils down to simple numbers.. tennis, squash, badminton and even swimming keep me much fitter (which i desperately need) vs. cricket.. also on a fun/hour spent criteria, they dont do all that bad either.. of course i know i will miss playing with a team, and ill miss being a part of it.. but i guess thats where the tough part comes in :)

The other fairly sorry disconnect is at a personal level - the amount of stuff i do on the field today (all owing to my poor performance of course) is not in line with the time investment im making in it.. so in bakir parlance, i may be investing in a small business, with no real right to win in the future either.. and im investing above case rate..

But want to retire at a high! so lets get them this season guys!