Cricket..not my cup of team anymore?

Well Well Well, lets jst see what has happened today. 2 matches, 1 catch dropped, 1 first ball duck and one run in the second match. So my batting average is 0.5. My catching average is -1 and I was of absolutely no help to my team. Add to the fact that I was the opening batsman and brought the pressure on the team thanks to my spectacular batting, things look even worse.

But, for all those who dont know about me and cricket, things were not always this bad. I am sure some of my friends can vouch that I was a pretty decent cricketer. Batsman to be precise. My childhood days in 'Ganga' Bldg and 'Mithchowki' were good starts. The best was my cricketing days in my engineering college. As a student of second year of engg, I one handedly took my team past the defending champions, the Final Year Mechanical batch!!!
It is easily my most cherished cricketing moment.

But things have changed. After moving to Pune, playing cricket was rare. And once i moved out from Ganga Bldg, it was over. No cricket. But when my friend RK asked me to play in the cricket tournament here I was excited. It was something I liked to do.

So there I was woke up at 7:20 AM, after a 'Friday Nite' party at home. We had like 4 large pegs of Chivas Regal + Black Label. Got up, packed my stuff and was all set to leave. RK came and picked me up and zoom, we were off to Glendale. A suburb about 15 miles from downtown LA. The scenery was awesome. A sight to behold. The ground was in the moutains. Surrounded with a lush green view on all the sides, the 9:30 AM match was gonna start in conditions ive never played cricket in. The temperature must have been below 15 degrees celcius. But what was even tough was the cold breeze blowing in the mountain area. Did a small warm up, I mean i ran onto the ground. Thats it!!! :D

The game started, we were bowling first. We had a gr8 set of bowlers. They restricted 'Infosys' to 55 in about 14 overs. it was a 20 over game.

Laxman, our captain asked me and Ravi to open. So there I was, just 55 to chase at an asking rate of less than 3. What a time to get settled and practice. But what happens next is funny and disgraceful at the same time.

Ravi takes a smart single of the first ball. I am on strike. My mind does a zillion calculations. I check the field again and again and store the gaps in my head. The bowler approaches. All hell breaks loose, stupid Ashley goes to hit a SIX of the first ball and CAUGHT BEHIND. ZILCH!!!!

What a come back i must say!!! Team mates are shocked. RK had told them Ashley is a good batsman!!! Nice joke RK.... I make the long walk back to the dug out. Sit quitely in the corner. Soon i realise team is 12 for 6. Wow, thanks for the positive start Ashley. 22 for 7. Btw, I just forgot to mention, we played a player short. So we had only 9 wickets to give!!!

Then Jagan started the revival. He and Kartik had a good 8th wicket stand. Things got interesting. We were now about 18 runs short, when Kartik was out. Last wicket. Can we do it.....

Yes we could, Shashank and Jagan got us through it. It was an exciting match. A very good experience after a long time.

The next match was at 4:30 PM. We had grub at Quizznoz, which now is my favorite Sub joint.
Came for the game. It was against a team, which happens to be one of the better teams. They made a good 120 odd runs.

Yours sincerely was out to open again. This time no FIRST BALL DUCK I thought. Played with a straight bat. Defended well. Second ball one run. Third ball, defended well again. Fourth ball, all hell breaks loose again, 2wice in one day!!!! ASHLEY goes for a big hit, caught about 15 metres inside the boundary wall. Just a single run. Made the long long really long walk back.

We lost the game. But we had good fun. Cheering our tail-enders. A real good fun time. Then ate good Indian food at Rasthal. Now its time to focus on tomorrow mornings game. If we win we are through to the quarters. If we lose, it may goto runrate and we might lose that race.

What I want to do tomo is show that I am not that bad a cricketer!! Lets hope and wait for the best.

I should know whether or not I should retire from the sport or not tomo!!!

Adios.

Ashley