First of all, if anyone of you is getting bored with the cricket entries on this blog, I don’t blame you at all. Who in their right frame of mind would spend like days, or the whole afternoon for a silly game of watching 22 dashing gentlemen dashing around for a small white/red ball (as if they don’t have enough), with some inexplicable rules of play and nomenclatures, puzzling statistics, madding crowd, but with surprisingly no fighting on the ground, the opponent teams and spectators even clap at each other, the players even tie the opponent shoe lace, and what not.
What I can tell you is that once you are hooked to cricket, the rest of the games are not interesting at all. Cricket is about character (lots of them), outwitting your opponent with not only might but teamwork and individual strengths, it’s a situational management, temperament control, pressure hegemony, delegation of tasks, timely execution of opportunities and go for the kill.
Last Saturday morning our Staroba Orange Cricket Club (SOCC) was invited for a friendly match of 40 overs by the Selangor U-17 team management. Ahh, playing against the boys in their prime. This wont be an even match. I remembered that well enough when I was 16 and 17, I played the whole year. The MSSPk, MSSM, few leagues, the SBP Abu Samah Cup, inter-house etc.
As expected these boys have not only skills but the stamina. Unlike our SOCC team which consists of mostly otai (yang tak sedarkan diri, according to our spouses) players. We hit 129 runs in about 35 overs, all-out. Yours truly whose out of any form of training or match since before puasa got to double figures, with 1 six (whoa!! howzat Mus) and 1 boundary and few singles. But as always, had an early exit.
Then our turn to field and defend the meager total. The first 10 overs, me and my junior Kally, shared the new ball and got 5 wickets. My second wicket had the bails (the two wood on the stumps) splattered to metres behind, and I did the Shoaib Akthtar’s flying eagle celebration. We heard the U-17 coaches and team managers shouting and side-coaching their team due to their poor than expected performance. For heaven’s sake this is a Selangor team. We just a bunch of social otai players …
Anyway, when the bowling pair changes and the U-17 middle order batsmen came for batting, they somehow managed to counter bowling spells and eventually take their team home and won the match.
BTW, PAK won the 5th ODI in Jaipur, though they lost the series 2-3. The replacement wicket-keeper Sarfraz making his debut by playing superbly. Watch out Kamran. I’m in the opinion that when PAK is playing in an excellent curated ground (previously in Mohali), they’ll win.
