Baby steps

I had talked about my first ever cricket match, played about 16 years ago and about my exploits on the cricket pitch on saturdays with a few colleagues and friends. I want to trace my steps back to when it all began.

It started in 1984. I was staying in one of the old localities of the then "Quiet" and "Pensioners' Paradise" Bangalore, called Srirampuram. On sundays, me and my father used to go early in the morning (~ 6am) to a local school which happened to have a decent ground in front of the school building (not big enough to play a match, but of the size of maybe a volleyball pitch).
The school used to be closed, but we used to somehow get inside the compound :). Once inside, my father made me practice some running and warming up exercises before we started cricket practice (that seemingly meaningless warming up used to kill me because i could not wait to start playing).

When we finally started, the routine was mostly the same. I used to practice batting. For all his exploits on the cricket pitch during his college days in Mysore, my father's only contribution to my cricketing skills were only 2 in number

- The forward defense
- The television @ home

I can still recollect the words - "Foot to the pitch of the ball, bat and pad (in your case leg) close to each other and play the ball down to the ground". Amazingly, i did not realize the boredom in playing that shot about 50 times every sunday morning (without ever being able to play it again during the street cricket for the fear of being beaten up by fellow cricketers for wasting deliveries in a limited overs game).

After the exercise, we used to go home and eat a boiled egg (prepared by dad, using a vessel that was considered as an outcaste by mom and kept far away from the other vessels in the house) :)
This practice lasted for an hour and a half and for close to 2 years. Looking back, i guess i have no option but to recognize the importance of those practice sessions.

Years later, when our school decided to take part in competitive inter-school cricket tournaments, it started the process of forming a team. All interested boys from class 8 - 10 were asked to attend the practice sessions taking place in the ground adjacent to the school, from 4 to 5pm. It was my first tryst with the leather ball. I only ever remember playing one stroke - The forward defense. I guess the bowlers were enthusiastic about showing how fast they could bowl and would pitch the ball upto the batsman and i was lucky it was ideal for the forward defense. Any ball slightly wide of the stumps, and i would let it go because i did not have a stroke for that. I came to know later on that the coach and the captain thought that i was a very good judge of which balls to play and which to leave and had a good technique :) (another example of communication gap). I remember playing the pull shot only 2 or 3 times and on each occassion, the ball was really short and without too much pace - making it all too easy to play the pull shot). On the day when the team was announced, after about 3 weeks of practice, i did not bother going to check on it, since there were many seniors in school and i was sure that they were going to be picked ahead of me. So, it came as an unexpected (albeit welcome) shock when me and my good friend from my class got picked.

After 10 years, one would imagine the lessons learnt during those sunday morning sessions will be lost. However, i still remember that forward defense lesson as though it was taught yesterday.

The other contribution made by my dad, like i mentioned above, was the television @ home. I only have 2 noteworthy recollections from my childhood days

- 6th Feb 1987 - I came home early from school, feigning illness (the school authorities arranged for an autorickshaw to drop me off @ my grandma's house), to witness a century scored by Srikanth in Chennai against Pakistan (I was studying in kindergarten but still remember that day vividly)

- The 1992 world cup - The matches usually started off at 5 in the morning and dad had told me that i was not supposed to wake up so early just to watch cricket, although he did exactly that. I used to open the door ever so slightly and watch the matches from the room without getting caught.