Tough shit

In around Jan I twisted my knee to end my best ever cricket season. I was averaging 30 plus runs in every match. This was all due to a simple lesson that I overhead one coach at Shivaji Park give out to his wards. The most important one was to keep your hands close to your body while playing the shots. These 30/40 runs also could have gone to become higher scores if not for the fact that I used to run myself out so that others get batting. In all my cricketing outings, playing twenty twenty for the corporate team, I haven’t ever hit a fifty. I came close, tantalizing close to 50 once, around four five years ago. This season was the season to hit 50. Normally my job as a youngster was to hit and clear the ropes or as an elder to eschew all risk and ensure the team doesn’t lose all the wickets. Over the last two years I built the B team into a decent formidable team that had decent batsman and decent bowlers. So my role changed to keep one end up for around 7 to 10 overs while keeping the runs flowing and then attack the bowling from 10 to 15 overs. With the technical flaw getting ironed out, I started to score runs and keep my wicket guarded. The team was also doing very well and we were building a strong nucleus in the side. So I was pretty frustrated when this Jan I twisted my knee and was out of the action. The team then went on to lose two semifinals and generally morale was down. Yesterday I decided I was fit enough to play. I had been keeping my workout going in the intervening days. Swimming was on. I even started cycling in the gym and I was doing 10 kms in 30 min with a 5 resistance. So I knew my stamina and speed wouldn’t be an issue but I was very worried about being in touch. Also the issue of captainship. Men. We love to play politics and we hate giving up power. We play our game and we take every chance to play a little game. Even the game of cricket where there is probably nothing at stake, we will play our political game. In my absence, coteries had formed. The captain had formed his own favorite gang. I realized why the B team had lost its knockout matches. We lost our core and we lost it so bloody fast. I had drilled it into the team that we play, not to win but to enjoy the game. We play to have fun, and to give everyone a chance. Slowly in my absence the team forgot about this. The captain would over bowl himself and his coterie, possibly in his desire to win. The B team doesn’t have talent. They have potential. Untapped and waiting to be let lose. You will never know on which day, which player will perform. The key was to ensure enough guys get enough chances. That simple principle was thrown out of the window. People just don’t get it. “When you treat a disease you win, you lose, but when you treat a patient you always win” – Patch Adams. When you play to win, you may win or lose, but you play to give people a chance you will always win. Winning is not the objective of the sport I play. It is the happy outcome. Having such an attitude helped me unearth good talent that helped us win and build our side. But all this is complete bullshit. I left the team for a few months and we forget all that. We mess it up completely. Now I know why some guys just kept bumping into office kept asking me to come back and lead. They indicated that they would come in only if I came in to lead. In yesterday’s match I did not lead. I stayed around the fringes. The guy in charge made some stupid, silly noises and asked for my opinion as if to pay due deference. I also did not seize it as I wasn’t sure of my own fitness. I struggled on the field missing a few catches and letting a bowl go from under my feet. So I was a bit apprehensive going into bat. Opening the batting, my job was to hang around till a few overs. I hung around a bit. Hitting a few drives and a missing a few. I stayed there till the fourth/fifth over to realize that possibly we were a bit slower than required chasing 160 in 20 overs. I gestured to captain if I could start hitting. Affirmative came the gesture. I started playing aggressive, trusting my footwork and my drives. I started stepping out to the spinner. A few boundaries and a few shots played out. I was on a roll! My shots were connecting and my technique was supporting me. The heat was also oppressive, but my cycling and swimming kept me through. I was a bit tired but not dead. Ten overs and I was still going strong. I realised that we still had bench strength, which meant I could go for more shots. Up the run rate even more, if possible. In Mumbai cricket is played on maidans with the pitches never in the centre. So you will have one boundary closer than the other. Typically the spinner will always use bowl from eth end where he gets a long leg side boundary and a short offside. It’s a trap I have used many times. Get the spinner to toss up to a really long leg side field and tempt some BIG shots. You might giveaway a six but you will get his wicket next. It always works. I was not going to be suckered into this trap. I wouldn’t be able to clear that. Especially against the left arm spinner bowling away. But that meant I could get the ball to clear the offside with the spin. Easier said than done. From a Leg side player when I started playing maidan cricket twelve years ago I had slowly evolved an offside attack. I hit a few boundaries there and then… there… one of my big dreams of my life. I danced down the spinner on a pitch that was holding up and smashed the spinner with the spin for a lofted cover drive and cleared the boundary for a SIX. I have never been able to cover drive a six. I have once smashed one over point. But that was a fast swing bowler. This was the shot to unsettle the spinner. He had no option but to bowl short and that meant easy pickings. Anything on the offside was being hit hard. Your game is over. While batting I felt a twitch in my knee. The same knee. I felt my back a bit. Oops. While running and turning sharp I realized I might have hurt my toes (two blue toes when I saw them later). So now I knew I was close to my first ever fifty and I knew I might not play another match this season. What should I do. Slow down. No. never. The team comes first. So I continued hitting till one mishit and I was in the pavilion. I had batted for thirteen overs, ran like crazy for a lot of runs, hit 6 boundaries and a six and when I saw my score I wanted to kill someone. 48 of 41 balls. My god! Another chance missed. The form of my life and I had not converted it. Was I going to retire without a 50 ever? We won the match eventually and I was declared man of the match. A huge achievement for someone who never had formal coaching and learnt by reading, listening and playing. Playing cricket in my mind. Promising never to repeat my mistakes. That’s the way I learnt. The real hard way. Here is me getting my award….

And here is my scorecard, for my record. Sorry to inflict this on the reader...

But I still walked away completely tired and frustrated. Frustrated that I did not hit 50 and even more so that my team was getting destroyed. I could see the resentment on the few players. I could see that people would not come in to play in the next few matches. I could see my team disintegrate and I knew that my knee, my back and my toes would not allow me to play again this season. And hence I have no option. Shut up and walk away. I will have to rebuild the team next season. I can’t interfere from outside and I can’t change a dam thing. Oh dam, I tried explaining this to the fellows in charge but people just don’t get it do they? Simple principals are forgotten in our desire to win. We forget why we are there, to start with. All we want to do is win and we start doing stupid things. The current guy in charge is a good cricketer but he will bowl himself more than required and he will not experiment as much as he should, he will rely on old hands and do old tricks. They don’t always work for you. And you can’t build long term on short term tricks. So I walked away with a win, man of the match and a great shot with disappointment and anger. Quiet seething rage. No fifty and a team being killed and I can’t do jack. Tough shit. Really angry tough shit. I will wait for time. Possibly rebuild the team and possibly hit at least one 50. At least one.

new thrills

Cricket season has started to good effect. As the B team we have actually won two matches in a row. It’s a great thing for the B team. We hardly ever won matches and we hardly ever had enough people to make the playing 11. This time around we have more than 15 players to choose from. It happens because we give enough chances for people to play in the 11 and when they play they get to bat or bowl. Now thanks to this everyone wants to play in the B team and the fringe players from the A team are trying to get themselves downgraded to the B team, so that they get to play. Hahah. Now that’s a nice win.
One day while coming in for a match I happened to come in early at Shivaji Park and I saw a coach talking to his wards. He was giving a lecture on batting. He was Lad sir from Bengal cricket club. Taking the opportunity I hung around to listen to him. It was an amazing learning experience. A lot of what he said reinforced what I knew but at the same time a few things helped me improve my game. I always knew that I must keep my hand and body close together but he taught how to. That day after his talk I immediately put the learnings to good use and scored quite a few runs. In fact a few boundaries I hit after being tired were completely thanks to the man. Keeping the bat close to the body helped me not get bowled. It was a learning I am not likely to forget. In fact I was going on so strong I thought I would hit the elusive 50 runs that I have never yet hit in the sport. But we were only two wickets down with five more overs to go. I could have gone on and fulfilled my dream but, thank god I kept my brains about. I knew that I had a bunch of guys wanting to bat. B team is about all those characters waiting to bat sitting inside the pavilion. I started taking suicidal runs, and it took some amount of runs to finally get me out. In bargain I got quite a few runs on board. That is the B team spirit. More get to play.
Here is the photo of the coaching session which I heard.


Hey - that’s a long time since I put a picture on the blog. There will be more coming. I finally upgraded my cell phone from the old trusty blackberry I had. It served me well for three and a half years. It was pretty high tech when I bought it and now in a short period of time it has become completely obsolete. And the way electronics are designed, I suspect they put in an auto destruct mechanism that shuts them out after a predestinated time. My poor handy phone sputtered through most of last year. I would handle the battery with care, the SD card refused to work. The camera didn’t work - everything went wrong except that – I got my mails in time and I could make calls. What more does a guy want?

Well, what more till I got myself the latest android. Now on my Samsung Galaxy, I click pictures, update my good reads account by simply scanning the barcode on the books, download and listen to my podcasts etc. In fact one day in the morning while Jispa was swimming I heard a podcast on Hayek vs Keynes on planet money , understood the difference, went online and checked out Hayek on Wikipedia, the saw two amazing rap videos that put both in perspectives. What an intelligent one hour, thanks to the new device I put in my pocket. Yes it also makes calls and the previous phone was somehow better and faster in that respect but hell, I am not complaining.

win or loose, wheres the booze

Saturday was a huge day for me and cricket. Nopes I did not manage to hit my elusive first 50. And I think with my aging instincts and fitness I don’t think I will ever get there. Sigh. But a journey that started around 9 years ago came to a large milestone. A little more than 10 years ago I joined this company to meet a man called Arun Solanki. One of the first things he asked me was if I could play cricket. I have played a lot of cricket, but almost all of that with a tennis or a rubber ball. Never with the professional hard leather cricket ball. Only a couple of matches. In one I smashed a lot of runs to win it for my team. But still not enough. He took me on in his team and taught me all that I know about cricket and captaincy. A couple of years later he asked me if we should start the B team within the company and asked me if I would lead it. Woah! At the time I knew little about field placements, a little about, cricket and a little about people. 8 years back, it was a small and disastrous start.
The B team was never a regular feature. I too moved within the company and it saw a few captains. Since last year with a couple of friends who are as dedicated to cricket as ever, we restarted the B team in full earnest. This year we even held selections and picked a pool of 20 players. I have learnt from experience that the B team is not a team designed to win. It is a bunch of rag tag players that play cricket because they love to play and not because they have some god given talent or experience. Most of them don’t even know how to hold the ball properly while bowling. Now as the captain and coach and manager I set a few things in place. These became my guiding force going forward.
The first amongst them was that everybody should get a chance to play. In the league phase matches, everyone would get a chance to play in the playing 11. I would never want to play the best 11. A hugely controversial rule that might have upset the players but would be fair to all. The b team never would have more than 2 – 3 ‘players’. It is largely made up of fringe players who come for the game and it made no sense for them to be out of the team and ferrying water for the rest. Also if you are in the 11, you will get a chance to bat and bowl to the position you like. You want to bat up the order, then sure go ahead, you want to bowl now, sure... in fact I did the unthinkable, I even gave field placements to people basis what they felt like doing. Allowing people to decide for themselves what they want to do. Interesting changes came about the team. From having to hustle 11 players for the team now in every match we had 14 /15 players to choose from.
The dressing room, (the tent actually in Mumbai) atmosphere was another thing I focussed on. A lot of fun. I always thought that the A team was a lot of bull shit. Too much technical stuff being discussed about cricket. Too much attitude being thrown and too much advice being given. I stopped all of that. I focussed on a lot of fun. In the team huddles, I only spoke about each man giving the game more than what he was capable of, thats it. Just play to whatever your potential is, not more not less. I told them not to dive too much and risk injury. I also told everyone not to shout or scream at your own players on the field. Misfields happen and catches get dropped. Its part of the B team. That’s why we have fun. I don’t care what the target is and what the score board says. Have fun. If someoenm gets out, dam cool, the others will get to bat. If someone bowls a long hop to be hit for a six, even better; more runs to chase. More batting. Once I was explain the B team ethos to a trainer and he summed it up best. “Win or lose, where’s the booze”. The focus is fun not winning or losing. The team spirit and the camaraderie is the most important thing here.
Doing all this during the season we found ourselves playing the finals of a tournament on Saturday. Oops. How did we get there. Of course, I am not kidding myself. It wasn’t like the prestigious tournament and that we played the best of teams. But the B team previously in all its existence must have won a couple of matches, tops. So a final was a big thing for my highly inexperienced team.
In the team huddle the first thing I said was, if anyone now calls this ‘the finals’ I will kick them out. We are not going to play the finals, we are out here to play cricket. No big match and no big occasion. We keep the same team ethos, no shouting, no frustration, only lots of fun. This year we normally fielded pretty decent, but in the finals, we dropped a catch, had a few misfileds and few shouts here and there. I kept calming people down and when the energy seemed missing after a couple of big hits by the opposition team, I shouted for energy and brains. On the field, I screamed, come on guys, on the field.
When the time came to chase, we too kept it simple. Play with your bat and the runs will come. Everyone contributed but we lost wickets at regular intervals. It became very tense at the end us down to the last wicket and 9 more runs to win off two over. Just the matter of being there. I focussed on getting the dressing room to relax, not shout too many things at the batsman at the crease. The batsmen somehow stuck in there and somehow won it for the team.
What I loved was that we played very well under pressure for an inexperienced team. Everyone contributed and that there were no single heroes in our victory. The team batted together, bowled together as a unit. When the last few overs were left, I couldn’t but think how close we had come. Win or lose, I told all my players individually, that it was a pleasure playing with every one of them. Because winning or losing did not matter how we played our game is what mattered. And to my mind, we played like a TEAM. We even made fun of our own players, brought smiles to people’s faces under pressure and did not scold any player for bowling wide or short or getting out to bad shots or getting other people run out. It happens.
Surely winning cannot be the redemption for a team that is not focussed on winning. And it’s not about the victory. It’s about creating team that likes to play together and be together. The fun in cricket which I thought was missing in the A team is so much evident in the B team. I am no technical coach and I hardly know my cricket. But what I know is that people play cricket to have fun. And fun doesn’t come from sitting in the dressing room watching others play and being told what to do. Fun comes from playing with the team and getting a chance to play your own part in the team. It’s a team game.
Now only to figure what’s wrong with my batting. I have scored almost nothing in this entire season. Literally next to nothing. I cant be in the team purely for captainship and little fielding.