One of the most enthralling moments on the cricket fields are the battles between fast bowlers and good batsmen. Good spinners mesmerizing the batsmen. The situation bends towards amusement the moment fast bowlers come hard at tail-enders. If that tail-ender happens to be the fast bowler of the opposing team, nothing can be more entertaining.
Yours truly was in one such situation. I was in the first year of the college, and was playing my first cricket match with the season ball. I had batted only once against the season ball, in the nets, at the fag end of the session when part-timers were bowling spin and slowish seam-up. So I was oblivious to pace bowling, but was surely not oblivious to fear of the fast ball as I had seen batsmen go down on knees when hit on the abdomen or the chest and the elbows, et all.
It was a practice match and as not too many days had gone-by, we were yet to be friends with most of the guys who were not from the same class. So, it was not a friendly battle and to add to that everyone wanted to make a mark; made it fierce.
Our team had to bat first. Our batting collapsed courtesy to the 6 foot hefty giant fast bowler in the other team. He was so feared that all the batsmen did was to try and play him out. In a 30 overs a side game, we were reduced to 110-8 at the end of 22 overs. I was sent as a number 10 batsman. The spinners were bowling from both ends and so I went in without a helmet. A part-time off-spinner was trying his dollies at me, one of which I managed to dispatch to the fence.
My worst fear came true, when the tall and hefty fast bowler was asked to bowl from the other end. Trying desperately not to look frightened, I called for a helmet from the dressing room. The gesture had attracted bouts of laughter from the typical dressing room junkies that they were. I couldn’t fit the helmet and the sub who got it, helped me out. Fixing my spectacles in that was a little clumsy and the time that was spent doing that, made the situation more tempting for the guys watching and I wished that the bowler didn’t concentrate too much on my helmet.
As I took guard and stood to face the first ball, I could hear clearly the comments that were coming from the dressing room about how interesting was the situation getting; while I tried to ignore all the junk that was coming from the slip cordon and from the man at short cover in front of my face spitting abuses and chewing gum. The bowler came hurling from a 20 yard run-up and the first sight of the ball I got was in the wicket keepers gloves before it had hit my thigh pad and went over the stumps. The bowler gave me a dismissed look as If he knew that was to happen and turned his back.
As I prepared to face the next ball, I could hear Sunny Gavaskar’s word’s of wisdom, “Always watch the ball out of the bowler’s hand!” As I concentrated, I saw the ball pitch in front of me and I just extended my arms towards it. Only to find in surprise that it had hit the bat and went over the head of the fielder at short cover for four runs.
The next ball, the bowler bowled fast and full on the middle stump in quest of rattling my timber. I could see the ball and only thing I did was bring my bat in the way of the fast ball to try and save my legs from getting broken. Phew! This one went to the square leg boundary too. I acted as If I knew it was going to the boundary. Now the bull was enraged. All he wanted to do now was hit my head.
The next one was dug in short around the off-stump; I swished at it and it flew off the edge over the slips for another four.
Now, I could sense the loyalties of the dressing room shift towards me and people were hooting for me. At the end of the ordeal, I had scored 31 runs off 22 balls. I never managed to score a total of 30 runs after that, the whole season; information just to put things in perspective. But the battle was won and the monster in the mind was put to rest.
