Cricket! Young and Free!!

After you are done with your graduation there are few things that make you be young and free. For many of us one of those few things must be playing cricket. Yeah, carrying couple of bats, pads, stumps and ready to get set on a half mile journey jotting out expert plans to outfox the opposition. After fixing of the bet amount and the boundary rules, ready get set go! Winning such bet used to be worth it because saving was more valuable when we didn't earn.  With exuberance of youth use to come the confidence of playing a match even though you didn't have a penny to pay later! Now it’s lost! You are more matured! However, like an adult driver who presses the accelerator testing the limits of his teenage wilderness, you are always daring to repeat similar peccadilloes from your youth!

courtesy: kctcplayers.blogspot.com

The time you bat, you are the prince at the center of a kingdom. Unlike many other moments in life, once in the crease, none can get you off it unless for your own ability. You are free as wind to hit the ball anywhere. You now no more need a recommendation letter from Lara to hit a pull shot with both feet in the air neither do you need an internship at Dilshan and Co. to hit over the keeper’s head. This feeling of freedom makes you young. Actually, it’s not ageing that makes you less young, it’s living in cage of a cubicle that makes you older. Here, in the crease there are guards to let you know your territory inside the popping crease. However, you can take the step out of it, take the risk, test your courage and maximize the benefits. A towering six would do no harm after all this is the only time you don’t need a visa to cross the boundary.

Every moment is for you to savor. The precise moment before you take the catch you forget all of it-your career, your love, your success and your degree. It’s more of a ball coming into your hand now. In a flash of a second, a group of other 10 men have expectation from you. Your hands begin to shift by itself. And even if it be the easiest of catches, you feel that joy when it sticks your hand – a joy that you can hardly describe in word. The team’s huddle to celebrate the catch substitutes the agony of a board meeting. What a joyful substitute? Perhaps, even more than having Andrew Flintoff as your super sub.

Well, honestly I have bowled very few overs that were good. So, when I attempted to write a passage about how bowling is, I got bowled. You can enjoy the gentlemen’s game but you can’t fake to succeed in it –a very important message for life. If you are faking to enjoy your life, better rebuild your life techniques now than to get yorked after a slow and match losing 60.

Oh! And more importantly the greatest joy is when your teammates relate your inning with some of cricket’s greatest! Finally, your teenage dream of being an international cricketer has partially been fulfilled. Cheers!