Lords of PESIT!!!

Time : Dec 1996

Location :PESIT, Bangalore

My first impressions of PESIT was that it was an Engineering school(literally), which imposes students to put their heads down, study, maintain a healthy distinction aggregate by the time you reach 6th semester, and get selected in some IT company, and join the bandwagon of software puppies!! Well most of this was true, and most of the most which was true, was demonstrated in the first 15 days after the college started!! Seniors not even dared to speak to we freshers, the canteen was empty during class hours, and an empty cricket ground, which was deserted during class hours!! My heart sank at the thought of spending 4 years in this place, when a pleasant surprise announcement made my heart pump with enthusiasm. What else could it be, there was an announcement made that a cricket tournament would be organized, with an opportunity for each department in each semester to send out teams for the event! Two such tournaments were organized every year, one during the odd semesters and the other during the even semesters. Since this was the only huge sporting event organized, this tournament drew lot of attention from the entire college.

For some strange reason, I had an impression that there would be a "professional selection" procedure that would be followed to make the team for 1st Sem E&C team. Although I was a decent left arm seamer, with a flair for flamboyant batting, i never fancied my chances to make it to the team, with all the macho looking, muscle flexing north indians in the class. I was way too skinny at that time, and any claim of mine that i was a good enough all rounder, would have been brushed aside.  (coming to think of it now, i feel so naive of me!!). Since none of us in the class knew each other (we had joined the college just 15 days back!!), the selection procedure was simple. The guys who thought could fight out the might of the college cricket divas, would give in their names, as either bowler, batsmen or both. Our then chief selector for the class, Vinay K would judge the batsmen and bowlers, and those who get his approval would land up in the final 11. My apprehension about making it to the team, vanished within minutes after the guy would had supposedly played for his high school cricket team in Delhi, as a opening batsman, took guard. 6 balls were bowled at him, 4 hit him in his box and other two whizzed past his bat, which appeared as if he was using it to swat flies. The bowler wasn't express fast, but both the batsman and the bowler were selected. The batsman based on his reputation and the bowler based on the fact that he could be beat a "reputed" batsman, 6 times out of 6.  No, that bowler wasn't me. I was selected based on the fact that i was a left hand bat and bowl!!! So much for the variety!!


With the army of 11 (add the words supposed to the following two words) reputed, talented , rusty and totally chaotic team, the 1st Sem E&C team entered the tournament. The first match was a cake walk for this team, which completed the formality of beating the 1st Sem CS with ease. It was only after this match that the actual team began to take shape. The supposed reputed openers were politely frisked out of the team. We weren't expected to perform and that's what worked out in favor of the team I guess. I had started performing decently in this team, and the time we reached the semis I was one of the pace quartet!!! Vinay K - The Curtly Ambrose of our team. Lanky fast bowler and because of his height, was able to generate very ackward bounce.
Shanshank (Chaini)- The Ox of the team. Such a bull forced bowler with searing pace.
Sumanth(Koli) - The steve waugh of the team. Gentle medium pacer with accurate line and length.
 Finally, 
Yours Truly - The Wasim Akram of the team (nobody called me that, i am huge fan of that man!!). Left arm super fast, over the wicket!!!

The progress in the tournament was nothing exponential, but a steady performance leading upto the semis. The semis and finals were scheduled on the same day and since the bunch of 1st timers were in the semis, there was an obvious curiosity in the whole college, about the 1st timers who had made it to the semis!!! We were just loving all the attention.

The Semis - 5th Sem E&C a team that boasted of most of the team members from the college cricket team. They were the champs till then and obviously had an air of arrogance about them. A riveting battle was on the cards, and to everybody's surprise David had slayed the demon!!! They could not chase down the target set by us, and by the end of the match, we were pinching ourselves to make us believe that we were in the finals of the tournament!!! Took sometime for the feeling to sink in!!


The final - 7th Sem E&C They were not much of a hyped team, but were the most experienced amongst the lot to have played the tournament! Till then I had performed pretty well in the tournament, and was raring to go. Blast runs, take wickets and what more the victory would be ours!! The opponents were seasoned campaigners though. Batting first, we set out a decent target, and i had a sizable contribution to the team score!!! The bowling fell in place and towards the end of the match we started to get the feel that, yes we will be winning the match and the tournament!! Finally, it happened, the last ball bowled and the formalities completed. We had won the tournament!!!


For the performance in that match, yours truly got a Man of the Match as well!!!


Coming to think of it, the entire tournament seemed to be a dream!! There was no expectations from us and we just enjoyed participating in the tournament, and we went on to win the title!!!


Probably there's a lesson in it for all of us.


How can i miss the champion eleven list, Here it goes: (This is the list that is there in my mind, sorry cannot recollect the 11th player)


1. Vinay (C)
2. Shashank
3. Sumanth
4. Arjun Swaminathan
5. Sandeep Das
6. Unni Krishnan
7. Tejasvi Das
8. Ankush Agarwal
9. Santosh Muniswamappa
10. Avinash

Outside this 11, there was a huge pool of talented cricketers, who made their own team B from the 1st Sem E&C stream, because they were not selected in the first choice 11 (I still wonder how could we leave out such a bunch of blockbuster cricketers) . Few among them were so hugely talented, they could not be left out of the first choice team in future semesters. I remember a few. (Sridhar Kumar, Pramod, Kiran Kumar Gururaj)

More about our restructured team and our future triumphs, in future posts!!!

A[V]I