My First Cricket Match in College
Cricket is the sport which most loved and popular game in India than in any other country in this world. Though it is created and spreaded by Britishers but the game is most popular in our country rather in England.
It was the year 2003 when i stepped in an engineering college. Here, in every year, cricket matches are played among various engineering streams like Electronics branch, Computers and so on. These are played among every class i.e. first year , second year, third year and fourth year of each and every branch. due to late admission process, i didn't get a chance to play cricket matches in first year. Oh ! God, what a start? Next came second year. This time, i made my mind to play cricket matches in second year. These cricket matches are normally scheduled in the month of December - January and it lasts for full one month before the kick off of annual gathering in the month on February.
In the month of October, notice was displayed in our department. Oh, i forgot to say that i was studying in Information Technology Branch. Yeah, after reading notice about kick off of cricket matches from first week of December, every guy in my class wanted to play. So, the competition became more tougher of getting selected in playing eleven because strength of boys in my class was around 45 from which at least 25 people turned up for playing cricket matches.
We all decided to gather on a ground near to our college on coming saturday at 10 AM to kick off the preparation. I never expected that all 25 boys will turn up. After gathering, there went discussion of who will lead the team, who will become the captain of the team? I said, guys, lets play first and see how everyone plays then will decide the captain of our team. All got agreed to my suggestion and we formed two teams of 12 players each. Then we went on for a toss in which my team lost and was made to field first. It was told before the start of the match by one guy that the guy who will play a great game will lead the team in tournament and everyone got agreed as there was no other point against it. It was 12 overs match and my opposition team scored 102 runs in 12 overs for loss of 8 wickets. No one was high scorer as few batsmen scored on an average of 20-25 runs.
Then it was our turn to bat and achieve the target. For the first 7 overs, our score was 67 for the loss of 3 wickets. Here was the downfall of our team. Then after the fall of 4th wicket, i came on to bat. On the very first ball, i received a bouncer as my height was 6 feet at that time. I was expecting a yorker after that bouncer and guess what, to tackle yorker, i stood well outside the crease and hit it for straight six. After that , i went on scoring runs and unfortunately got out when the team's score was 95 after 10 overs. Then we went on to win the match, and i was made as CAPTAIN of my team. During practices, i selected squad of 14 members and went in college on 5th December to play our first match of the tournament. Our first match was against final year Chemical which was known as toughest team of that year because it had 3 players which play for college in university matches. Hearing this, made some moral down of some of the players and as usual, i lost the toss but surprisingly, we were made to bat first as they were very confident of winning match very easily. This might be because of in the history of my college, never ever single match is won by any of the team of IT branch and it was expected that maximum of the audience support will be for Chemical guys. But, after seeing our practice sessions, guys from Electronics branch started supporting us.
It was very bad start for us as we lost both two openers in the very first over. Then to stabilize, i went on to bat and helped our team to score 95 runs in 12 overs. In first innings, i scored 35 runs which was appreciated by head of sports department. In second innings, both openers of opposition were university players but i tried to make my bowlers calm down and focus on the match. But they went on a flier as they were 55 runs in just 5 overs for no loss. Then, i came on for a bowl and fortunately, one of them got run out. There we enjoyed as everyone feel some sigh of relief and on next bowl, third university player gave me an easy caught and bowl. At that point, i started feeling that we our still in the game and we can win it. As the match went on, after 11 overs they were 87 for 9 as the whole team was dependent on those 3 players. Prior to the start of final 12th over, i called up whole team and said " Guys, we are in game and we can win this. But, remember, no miss fieldings and no over throws."
But, on the very first bowl, one guy did miss field and bowl went on to cross boundary rope. And there went the score as 91. More tension went on to build on the bowler but he kept his calm and bowled next 3 deliveries as dot deliveries. No run was scored in those 3 deliveries. Now, statistics were showing that chemical guys need 5 runs to win from 2 balls with one wicket left. On fifth delivery, unfortunately, bowler bowled a no-ball and 2 runs were scored on that delivery. This means that they require 2 runs in 2 balls. and then fifth delivery went as a dot ball. Now, they were looking to draw the match , so i called everyone inside 30 yards circle keeping one long off and one deep cover . That situation made match very interesting. They tried to take a tight single on the last ball , ball directly came to me and made last batman run out. Last score was 94 all out in 12 overs. As soon as this happened, all our classmates, our professors , who turned up to watch the match, rushed towards us and then we all just started shouting We Won !!! We Won !!! And then, i was congratulated by Sports Head and then this match went on in making another history that IT guys have potential to win match against any team
Today, also, whenever i think about college days or whenever i go into college, everytime this match gets on my mind.
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