It's been a long time coming.
So there we are, preparing for a cricket game against arch rivals Chalambar, looking forward to a decent game, given that their star player is in jail for a month for trafficking, much to my delight (the same guy who hit me in the head with a bouncer more than a year ago). We're looking good despite having to bat first - not usually a good option in a one-day game, but we lost the toss so I can't say anything. Anywho, picture me at No. 6 - a decent spot for me - and four wickets falling at the drop of a hat.
Nine overs in and we're four down for 33. Not a good score. Well, time for the CJ-machine. I step in onto the oval, and after a bit of a shaky start, manage to get off the mark. Good. My New Year's Resolution is "no ducks". So far I'm succeeding. My goal for this season is to get a fifty - considering I hit 36 two weeks ago it can't be far away. Anyway, a few overs later, my partner goes out. We're five down and looking bad. The next guy comes in, and pretty soon I'm facing a spin bowler. They're slow, but you can not be complacent with spin bowlers, as is the example here: he bowled me a few very loopy balls, all full-tosses on the leg side. I hit him for 2, 4, 2, 2, the next ball is a wide, then suddenly he rips in with a decent ball. Ha! See? Anyway, I've scored ten runs in four balls, and after the boundary (four) something snapped in the back of my mind.
I can do this!
When I lose my next partner, Beano comes in. He's a guy I can always always always make a good partnership with. By now I'm on about 20 runs and I'm thinking "Can't be much left until I pass my high score". The opening bowler comes in, and he's the guy I know from school in this log. Beano faces the first five balls, then the bowler gets an idea when I get on strike. I know exactly what's coming, but it doesn't mean I react properly: I never try and predict where a ball is going to go, so he bowls a short ball and I end up with a bruise on my left shoulder. I vow revenge; unfortunately, one over and a few runs later, it's drinks. I'm feeling very very good, because this knock has been so much better than my 8 of last week, and potentially better than the 36. But I don't know that. I don't know the score, nor do I want to know. I do a couple of pushups to keep me going - Beano protests but I have my reasons - and we're back out on the field. He's bowling again, but he's learned his lesson: he doesn't bowl anything else short. However, I do hit one straight back at him - it's a hard chance and he drops it, but I vow to be cautious for the rest of my innings.
Still in, and facing a new bowler, I clip three balls in a row past first slip (there is nobody else in the slips cordon) and they all go for two runs, except the third which goes for four. As the umpire signals "Four" I hear an almighty cry from the boundary followed by applause; I have made my maiden half-century. I raise my bat and my other fist towards the rest of the team, then I adjust my box and carry on, remembering advice from my dad as I go: "When you get to fifty, make your next goal a hundred." My cry of "DOUBLE IT UP!!" during those three balls became the most used phrase for me for the afternoon. Then my partner loses his wicket. I am running out of partners, and I am running out of time. I won't get my 100 but I'll have a dip anyway. After that partner loses his wicket, we are 8 down and now out of trouble. Alex comes in to bat, and I just say to him "Stay in". So he does.
You beat me to (a fifty), you bastard.
On my captain's orders, I decide to have a bit of a swing, as we are down to 4 overs left. My first swing gets me a few runs, but my second swing - next over - bowls me. At that point, the same guy I know from school yells, celebrates, and whoops, all the way from the boundary to the pitch. In fact, all through the innings, he's been like that, even having a dip at Forrest Gump at one point: "Cricket's like a box of chocolates, you never know which one is going to be the wicket." For the rest of the day he talks about chocolate. Thank Gods he didn't get me out; instead I've been bowled by a left arm medium. I've made 75, my highest ever score (in fact, double my previous HS), the highest score in the team and the game, and the longest I've ever stayed in for (29 overs). Dad comes out to bat, and next over is bowled out. We are all out for 198, a defendable total.
And defend it we did. They played in the exact same fashion as us - losing early wickets, rallying, and losing the rest steadily - with the exception that our bowling and fielding was tight, so in the same amount of overs that we made 198, they fell all out for 119. A 79-run victory: without my contribution, we would have won by only 4 runs and the game would have hella changed. One more thing to note that might have changed the course of the game: I misfielded one ball, the batsmen had a mix-up which left a batsman stranded in the middle of the pitch, the fieldsman who backed me up fired the ball into the stumps and ran him out. Hehe. My slip-up screwed them over.
I just wish I could have gotten you out.
"Forrest Gump" went out for five runs. He was bowled by one of our star bowlers on the second-last ball, and it was perhaps that wicket that gave us the most reason to celebrate; he'd been yapping all through our innings, and it wasn't just me that wanted to punch him out. At least two others from our team wanted to have a swing at him. Fortunately, we all kept our tempers, and after the final wicket fell, I souvenired a stump, traditional for the winning team and/or the best player of the day. I was loving it when I was out there and I was loving it even while I was writing this daylog...
We went to the pub.