Having worked in a start-up firm for more than half a decade an important lesson I have learnt over the years, is whatever you do make it saleable! This lesson has become so-much second nature to me, that it inspired me to name this post such that it would lull some of the readers to click on this blog post, with the hope to read something spicy :) about my rendezvous with destiny!
Getting closer to mid-life brings forth a plethora of crisis scenarios which manifest itself in various forms. Bulging waist lines receding hair lines impossible deadlines lead to lot of horizontal lines on the fore head showing lot of evidence that age is catching up. Although these lines don’t cause havoc, before getting a horizontal line on the ECG machine, an urge to do lot of things just one more time pushes us back in age and makes us believe I am not that old to try this! Let me give this one a try and see how it goes. This “try” for me, has many activities in the bucket list like camping in a tropical rain forest, a wild river rafting, a tough trek (ok…not so tough may be…but a moderately tough trek), a “running all the way in a completed marathon”, experiencing paranormal activity, a competitive cricket match....to name a few. Being in an “organized industry” the managerial way to do this is to make a TODO list, put a deadline and knock off the easiest ones first! For a person who is neither organized nor has any managerial traits, destiny had to make the first move in presenting an opportunity to knock off these TODOs one by one :). So, it happened that a cricket tournament was announced in the organization I had recently joined, and somehow an invite to join the cricket practice popped up in the outlook e-mail. Teary eyed, when I was just about to think how pro-active the HR team was, in looking into the “hobbies” column of my employee record form to find out I play cricket and inform the concerned people in the business unit I work for, I remembered that I was constantly refreshing the cricbuzz app scorecard in my phone, during the very first project introduction meeting with the head of department. May be someone sitting next to me saw this endearing interest, and promptly updated the “concerned” about this concern of mine(about the cricket score) which I was more concerned about, rather than the project. I have to wait till my appraisal meeting to know the repercussions of this “concern”. Well that’s for an another day, but yes, coming back to the cricket practice invite, I was thrilled to know that I would be presented with another opportunity to knock off “the easiest “ item in my TODO list. How easy was this easiest…..? Read ON!
“Hi! Do you bat or bowl sir?”…. an easy full toss question probably 15 years back! But now? “I used to bat and bowl…”, I said hesitantly….not an encouraging answer from my end….so the captain popped the next question, “when did you last play, Sir?”…. when I looked skywards to come up with a number….the captain realized that I was probably going to say something in the range of multiple of decades, he blurted out “We need 11 guys Sir, and participation is important” :). That was more than encouragement. For a person who considered himself Wasim Akram of India, this was slap on the face. “I am a left arm bowler, fast J” I said. The captain smiled. “Every drunkard thinks he is rock steady after his drinking session” lines might have flashed in his mind. “OK sir, please bowl let us see!”. Time to mark the run up. I started walking with the ball in hand. “Sir where are you going?” shouted the guys from a distance. Oh no! everybody thought I was leaving the ground! Relax guys, that was my run up. Ok, people realized that this was in the Shoaib Akhtar range. Let me tailor it down a bit, I told myself. I don’t want to be panting even before reaching the bowling crease! The run up which ambitiously started off almost near the boundary line, ended up starting just behind the umpire. OK, Practice done, a left hand bowler is an automatic selection and since the pace was OKish, they thought I would be a good addition to the team. By the way, I batted much better than I bowled and they unearthed an unlikely pinch hitter in me. Opening the batting in never my cup of tea, I suggested. “Sir since you bat left handed, they will bowl wides to you and automatically it will be an advantage”. A right and left hand opening combination always works out great sir!” That worked out great only if the opening batsmen were ganguly and Tendulkar or jayasuriya and kaluvitharana. Except for the pruned moustache of ganguly and bald head of jayasuriya I had no semblance with either of them. I dint have enough logic to argue, and it was an opportunity for me..so I said OK and thought about crossing the bridge when it comes.
“You twisted your ankle?, oh no wait, I think you have a catch because you squealed while sitting….why you are not able to squat on the floor, standing up every minute as if you have cramps? You cant even lift your hands properly any problem with your shoulder? Why are you walking as if you are going to deliver a baby in the next half an hour? Whats the matter?” about half a dozen questions from my better half when I did the following actions: a. Remove my shoes b. Change to comfortable home dress.
“I got selected for cricket team and today was the first day of practice!”. Wife smiled. That night I smelt more like a bottle of amrutanjan, tiger balm and volini put in one. Alarm and wife snoozed at exactly the same time next morning and pushed me out to go for a jog. Felt better and this temporary morning ritual for the next few weeks converted me from a grounded lambretta to a “good to run for a day” old bajaj scooter :).
On the day of our first match, I was the first one to reach the ground. A center pitch with clearly marked inner ring and the boundary line….. a neatly watered pitch so that its not dusty, hmmm I was impressed. A 10 over a side match in a knock out tournament format. We lost the toss but were invited to bat first! The strategy for the first few overs was to keep out the good balls and score just ones and twos…..and if you are not panting for breath run the third as well… and punish the bad ones bowled at you. The emphasis was on quick singles which basically meant that you ensure you reach the other end. If your partner dint make it, bad luck. But don’t be so slow off your blocks that you would be shaking hands at the middle of the pitch giving the opportunity for the opponent team to “choose” whom to run out! So the partnership started very well…as per plan….we dint want to lose any wickets and we dint lose any in the first four overs. But one problem was the run rate was gavaskaresque. Few insects and flies had fallen prey to my tremendous bat swing, furious cover drives and wonderful pull shots, but the ball always landed in the wicket keepers hands. For a person who believed in hand eye co-ordination to send the ball to the orbit, the most important thing is that both the hands should have co-ordination first to make sure that the bat stays in the hand, because in my attempts to hit the ball out of the ground, the bat had left the hand thrice… narrowly missing the square leg umpire once, the wicket keeper once and bowler himself caught the bat once. To make the team members sitting in the stand feel that I failed to connect the ball, just that one time, I kicked the pitch, shouted expletives at myself and generally tried to look focussed and was worried about the test match like run rate. But when it became an every over ritual….the opponents found great benefit in having me at the crease than getting me out. When the first wicket did not fall even at the beginning of the 8th over, we decided we need go to into overdrive, which basically meant that even though we dint touch the ball, we just run, hoping that they run out either one of us. Now the immediate agenda for the both the teams changed completely. Ours was to get out and theirs was not to get us out. We achieved our agenda first J. In the remaining few deliveries, the other batsmen hit the ball with more frequency than we hit flies, so the result was a respectable target of 65 runs in 10 overs.
Defending this target is challenging enough for international bowlers, but not for non professional players like us, because the batsmen are also in the same league as the bowlers. Four of the opponents’ pot-bellied batsmen rolling like casks between the wickets were run out and few of their good batsmen hit the ball so accurately, that it landed right in the butterfingers of our fielders, who managed to latch onto the catches. So when an exciting finish was on the cards, their team discovered a Michael bevan in a broom stick wielding messiah whose main agenda was to make the pitch sparkling clean while batting. So he swept all the balls that were bowled at him so cleanly that the ground staff thought that he would cost them their jobs. As an addendum to his cleaning job, he ensured that he won the match for their team as well! Though a bit unhappy about the result of the match, I was mighty pleased that I got an opportunity to tick the easiest of the TODOs in my bucket list. For all my batting adventures, the captain who patted my back said, “Its ok sir, you stayed at the wicket throughout the innings, all that you needed was a bat with a wider blade. Do you play badminton as well :)???”
Getting closer to mid-life brings forth a plethora of crisis scenarios which manifest itself in various forms. Bulging waist lines receding hair lines impossible deadlines lead to lot of horizontal lines on the fore head showing lot of evidence that age is catching up. Although these lines don’t cause havoc, before getting a horizontal line on the ECG machine, an urge to do lot of things just one more time pushes us back in age and makes us believe I am not that old to try this! Let me give this one a try and see how it goes. This “try” for me, has many activities in the bucket list like camping in a tropical rain forest, a wild river rafting, a tough trek (ok…not so tough may be…but a moderately tough trek), a “running all the way in a completed marathon”, experiencing paranormal activity, a competitive cricket match....to name a few. Being in an “organized industry” the managerial way to do this is to make a TODO list, put a deadline and knock off the easiest ones first! For a person who is neither organized nor has any managerial traits, destiny had to make the first move in presenting an opportunity to knock off these TODOs one by one :). So, it happened that a cricket tournament was announced in the organization I had recently joined, and somehow an invite to join the cricket practice popped up in the outlook e-mail. Teary eyed, when I was just about to think how pro-active the HR team was, in looking into the “hobbies” column of my employee record form to find out I play cricket and inform the concerned people in the business unit I work for, I remembered that I was constantly refreshing the cricbuzz app scorecard in my phone, during the very first project introduction meeting with the head of department. May be someone sitting next to me saw this endearing interest, and promptly updated the “concerned” about this concern of mine(about the cricket score) which I was more concerned about, rather than the project. I have to wait till my appraisal meeting to know the repercussions of this “concern”. Well that’s for an another day, but yes, coming back to the cricket practice invite, I was thrilled to know that I would be presented with another opportunity to knock off “the easiest “ item in my TODO list. How easy was this easiest…..? Read ON!
“Hi! Do you bat or bowl sir?”…. an easy full toss question probably 15 years back! But now? “I used to bat and bowl…”, I said hesitantly….not an encouraging answer from my end….so the captain popped the next question, “when did you last play, Sir?”…. when I looked skywards to come up with a number….the captain realized that I was probably going to say something in the range of multiple of decades, he blurted out “We need 11 guys Sir, and participation is important” :). That was more than encouragement. For a person who considered himself Wasim Akram of India, this was slap on the face. “I am a left arm bowler, fast J” I said. The captain smiled. “Every drunkard thinks he is rock steady after his drinking session” lines might have flashed in his mind. “OK sir, please bowl let us see!”. Time to mark the run up. I started walking with the ball in hand. “Sir where are you going?” shouted the guys from a distance. Oh no! everybody thought I was leaving the ground! Relax guys, that was my run up. Ok, people realized that this was in the Shoaib Akhtar range. Let me tailor it down a bit, I told myself. I don’t want to be panting even before reaching the bowling crease! The run up which ambitiously started off almost near the boundary line, ended up starting just behind the umpire. OK, Practice done, a left hand bowler is an automatic selection and since the pace was OKish, they thought I would be a good addition to the team. By the way, I batted much better than I bowled and they unearthed an unlikely pinch hitter in me. Opening the batting in never my cup of tea, I suggested. “Sir since you bat left handed, they will bowl wides to you and automatically it will be an advantage”. A right and left hand opening combination always works out great sir!” That worked out great only if the opening batsmen were ganguly and Tendulkar or jayasuriya and kaluvitharana. Except for the pruned moustache of ganguly and bald head of jayasuriya I had no semblance with either of them. I dint have enough logic to argue, and it was an opportunity for me..so I said OK and thought about crossing the bridge when it comes.
“You twisted your ankle?, oh no wait, I think you have a catch because you squealed while sitting….why you are not able to squat on the floor, standing up every minute as if you have cramps? You cant even lift your hands properly any problem with your shoulder? Why are you walking as if you are going to deliver a baby in the next half an hour? Whats the matter?” about half a dozen questions from my better half when I did the following actions: a. Remove my shoes b. Change to comfortable home dress.
“I got selected for cricket team and today was the first day of practice!”. Wife smiled. That night I smelt more like a bottle of amrutanjan, tiger balm and volini put in one. Alarm and wife snoozed at exactly the same time next morning and pushed me out to go for a jog. Felt better and this temporary morning ritual for the next few weeks converted me from a grounded lambretta to a “good to run for a day” old bajaj scooter :).
On the day of our first match, I was the first one to reach the ground. A center pitch with clearly marked inner ring and the boundary line….. a neatly watered pitch so that its not dusty, hmmm I was impressed. A 10 over a side match in a knock out tournament format. We lost the toss but were invited to bat first! The strategy for the first few overs was to keep out the good balls and score just ones and twos…..and if you are not panting for breath run the third as well… and punish the bad ones bowled at you. The emphasis was on quick singles which basically meant that you ensure you reach the other end. If your partner dint make it, bad luck. But don’t be so slow off your blocks that you would be shaking hands at the middle of the pitch giving the opportunity for the opponent team to “choose” whom to run out! So the partnership started very well…as per plan….we dint want to lose any wickets and we dint lose any in the first four overs. But one problem was the run rate was gavaskaresque. Few insects and flies had fallen prey to my tremendous bat swing, furious cover drives and wonderful pull shots, but the ball always landed in the wicket keepers hands. For a person who believed in hand eye co-ordination to send the ball to the orbit, the most important thing is that both the hands should have co-ordination first to make sure that the bat stays in the hand, because in my attempts to hit the ball out of the ground, the bat had left the hand thrice… narrowly missing the square leg umpire once, the wicket keeper once and bowler himself caught the bat once. To make the team members sitting in the stand feel that I failed to connect the ball, just that one time, I kicked the pitch, shouted expletives at myself and generally tried to look focussed and was worried about the test match like run rate. But when it became an every over ritual….the opponents found great benefit in having me at the crease than getting me out. When the first wicket did not fall even at the beginning of the 8th over, we decided we need go to into overdrive, which basically meant that even though we dint touch the ball, we just run, hoping that they run out either one of us. Now the immediate agenda for the both the teams changed completely. Ours was to get out and theirs was not to get us out. We achieved our agenda first J. In the remaining few deliveries, the other batsmen hit the ball with more frequency than we hit flies, so the result was a respectable target of 65 runs in 10 overs.
Defending this target is challenging enough for international bowlers, but not for non professional players like us, because the batsmen are also in the same league as the bowlers. Four of the opponents’ pot-bellied batsmen rolling like casks between the wickets were run out and few of their good batsmen hit the ball so accurately, that it landed right in the butterfingers of our fielders, who managed to latch onto the catches. So when an exciting finish was on the cards, their team discovered a Michael bevan in a broom stick wielding messiah whose main agenda was to make the pitch sparkling clean while batting. So he swept all the balls that were bowled at him so cleanly that the ground staff thought that he would cost them their jobs. As an addendum to his cleaning job, he ensured that he won the match for their team as well! Though a bit unhappy about the result of the match, I was mighty pleased that I got an opportunity to tick the easiest of the TODOs in my bucket list. For all my batting adventures, the captain who patted my back said, “Its ok sir, you stayed at the wicket throughout the innings, all that you needed was a bat with a wider blade. Do you play badminton as well :)???”
A[V]I
