With a new season, comes a new aura, a new plan, a new phase, and everyone just succumbs to it ... For us in The Immortals camp, the mark of the regular season 2009 meant, 6-7 months of cricketing action, bowlers attacking batsman, batsman running for their runs, fielders toiling in the Californian summer to save every single and to hold on to those important catches, and at the end more importantly the new season meant a new chapter in the history of The Immortals ...
With being the Gold Cup champions in the rookie season 2008 and a humilating early round exit in the Fall Open 2008 immediately following the glory of being a Gold Champ, what can The Immortals bring on to the field for the tough exciting brand new Cricbay Regular Season 2009. One thing for sure, is this team now definitely maturing, growing strongly, and knows how to handle defeats and yet come up on top of it and deliver a stunning performance game after game. With the same agenda of sticking to the basics, delivering the best, The Immortals took on Royal Ranji in their season opener. Both the teams meeting for the first time, wanted to get their winning momentum back on track, and build on to it. It was crucial how the first game goes, as that would surely set the tone for the rest of the season to come. The match was played in Cupertino and The Immortals were the home team.
As always, a fine saturday morning, a pleasant California Summer, a perfect day for cricket, and along with came the never ending issue of not having a permanent Home Ground registered. The game was delayed as the players went scurrying for the ground, and luckily found (one of the best till date) in Cupertino. The game was set, players were all charged up, both the teams agreed to play the full 20 overs and not deduct a couple of overs due to a late start. The Immortals lost the toss and Royal Ranji choose to bat first.
Now, a day before, in the practice session for The Immortals, it was decided that I, would not be fielding at my regular Off side position, as I have been a bit on and off the rhythm in that position, although I have been there long enough for almost each game that I have played. But lately, the talented players thought it would be better to put someone else there, and "hide" me somewhere else on the field ... Well, I dont deny the fact, that there have been some sloppy incidents on the Off side, but then it is a hard position to be in where the batsman is more likely to score a lot of runs, but nevertheless, respecting the Captain's (more of Vice Captain's) call, I moved on to the leg side, right besides the Leg Umpire ... Well, ahem, as fate might be, and as Ronak mentioned when the game started that the ball follows me, the very first ball, very first delivery of the Season Opener and it was flicked by the batsman to the leg side, and surprisingly, it landed right in my hands ... In just a split second, the first wicket was down, and more astonishing was the fact that I had "held" to the catch ... (Psst: Even though it did look like as if it was almost to get out of my hands lol) ... Phew !!! I survived a bashing from Nirmam who was the bowler...
Great start, but then as always, the other two batsman put their heads down, and started building the innings ... Our bowlers worked hard to get us back in the game, but Ranji's captain was playing a steady innings. Then the moment came, which by now we all are very much seasoned for, as always, there was an appeal for a clean caught behind, which was not given by the umpire in our favor, and nor did the batsman walk ... It was so much frustrating and we have been through these rituals umpteen times ... One would say there could be only one thing which could be frequently biting us, but for The Immortals, there were two - finding a confirmed Home Ground (and that too not on the day of the match) and dealing with Umpires ... We have always been unlucky in these two departments ... Nothing that we could do, and we just go back to go on with the game ...
Now within these moments, I had a small chat with Keka (Karan) that this captain of the opposite team is a good player, and he always plays such long innings (as I happened to watch him score 48 runs in a game which I was umpiring), and Keka lightly but passionately said, he is mine ... And the very next ball, after the appeal for caught behind went down, Keka bowled something, which just went past the batsman, and the furniture was broken ... The first bowled moment seen after a long long time ... We were just hungry for that ... The partnership was broken ... Were we back in the game ?
Of-course the going never gets easy, and there was this another batsman who would not just get out ... None of our bowlers looked to make an impact, and runs were coming at an easy pace ... Well but then we can never stop surprising ourselves, leave alone the opposition :) The ball was given to another Karan of our team (Batti, SJSU), and well the first over he bowled, and what was to come was just truly a feeling of champion ... He spinned the batsman into wonderland such that, not only he got wickets, but he bowled superbly enough to contain the batsman in scoring freely. Well what then? The rest as they say was history ... The Immortals were back in business, and they literally cooked the oppositon who were in pressure ...
At one stage when Ranji's were 60 for 3 wickets, they just folded to some awesome bowling from Karan (Batti) who took 3 wickets for a measle 7 runs in 3 overs and some great work in the field to end their innings at 72 ... The last 7 wickets going down for just 12 runs ... Great comeback, but still paranoia surrounded The Immortals ... After all the game was just half over, and the other half of the battle was still to be won ... Mind you, we could be called chokers, if not literally, but to an extent when it comes down to chasing even the lowest of scores ...
As always, Nirmam our tensed buddy, was marching up and down in the dug out, and the openers got ready to finish the task and take the Immortals home for a first victory of the season ... With our regular opener Sanato (Viral) out for this game, it was left to our Captain (Darshil) and the natural opener Ronak, to see that there are no more hiccups ... They got off to a good start, and held the innings together, with a steady pace ... Darshil was outright fluent in his shots, and Ronak was holding the other hand to frustrate the opposition ...
The funny moment of the game occurred when, Ronak got out when the score was just 22, next in was Jainip, and just as he was about to get up from the bench, and walk towards the field, Nirmam with his tensed voice just said "Ubho Rehje" (Stand and Wait), in order to indicate to play a patient innings and to stand at the crease without getting out... LOL so funny was the moment, when Jainip literally frooze in his track half bent, half standing, and we all thought that Nirmam wanted to go in to bat :)
Well, the runs were coming steadily with a captain innings, and Karan (Batti) with his Kookabura (which is made so much fun of by Nirmam) ... There was a biggie from our captain too to prove that he can clear the ropes just when someone in the dugout had mentioned that there are only 2 players on our team who can do so - Nirmam and Ronak, WHACK was the sound that broke our conversation and we saw Darshil's shot making a mockery of our comments as the ball landed outside the rope for a 6 !!! At the end it was the Captain and our comedian entertaining Vice Captain (Aditya) to see that Immortals won the game, by 7 wickets and almost 5 overs to spare ...
A win, is always going to be sweet, doesn't matter if it comes against a weak, good or a better opposition, especially to set the mood with a season opener. As always the complaints were only with the umpiring and with Aditya making a lot of funny arse comments on the field ... But at the end we won ... The man of the match was no doubt - Karan (SJSU) Shah (Batti) - for his 3 crucial wickets, and some handy runs ... Great performances ...
Man there was a time where i had balls in my mouth thnking that ohh boy here we go again ... had it not been batti coming out with that magical spell.. we would have had a tough time winning that game...ball spinning in to the batsman knocking the stumps out from long on position is always a treat to watch.. Cheers
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