ASHES

Poore 30 over

Those who don’t understand the title, it very simply translates as ‘poore tees over’. My cellphone is nearing its 2nd anniversary and so is this phrase on the display of its screen. It is one phrase which changed a lot for me.

Cricket has taught me a great deal in life and I have always tried to draw parallels between cricket and life. But nobody ever taught me cricket. I don’t remember as I must have been 4-5 then when my father would have handed me a plastic bat. He might have taught me how to hold it. But that was it, I had no body to learn it from. Like most kids of my age I learnt cricket through TV. I was never able to get in to a serious cricket coaching where someone could teach me the nitty grties of cricket. I missed studying cricket from someone.

I still remember that six year old who was bullied by some 9-10 year olds for not being able to bowl with a legitimate action. I was a throw bowler. That day and place will forever be in my memory. That was the first time I felt insulted and humiliated.

I was never a prodigy and success to me can never come overnight, that is if at all it comes. I have always had to work hard. I was ready to work hard and clear myself off this tag. Through my school years I was a famous bowler but never made it to the school team. I could never even find courage to ask my mother to let me go and play cricket every Sunday morning for 3-4 hours. That would have been enough to take me to the school team. When I came to IIT I had left studies and parental pressure behind me and it was time to give it everything.

I finally got a chance to play for the IIT Delhi team. IIT gave me the opportunity to play cricket as none other could have. It was a dream, and it had come true. My captain in my second year used to tell us that if we stick out the full quota of overs i.e 30, we were unbeatable. He used to keep shouting ‘poore tees over’ from the edge of his seat from the dressing room. We did win many matches and it really struck me how potent that phrase is. The phrase stuck with me and has always given me inspiration. What it means to me is that if you go the full distance and put everything you got, you will never lose.

It is funny how this phrase never really worked in real life. I wanted to do well in cricket, and wanted to prove it to myself that I can play well. I did satisfy myself. It is the passion within me that helped me. Success breeds on commitment but you need passion to let that commitment make any sense. That is the reason we are not good at everything. It is only the things we are really passionate about that we are able to do well through hard work. That’s why I sometimes feel that all through life there will be situations where letting something go will look like an easier option rather than putting an effort and fighting. Long story short, life is not cricket! So it doesn’t matter how much you try sometimes you will just fail.

As I slowly start to accept the fact that cricket is now fading away from me, at least playing it, I still hope it does not. It beats me sometimes how I became a lover of cricket almost finicky some might say (some actually do say, but I take that as a compliment). But I am proud of that and always will be. It’s just sad that I can’t say that with absolute confidence about myself for life other than cricket.

The other day I heard that famous dialogue from the movie ‘Being Cyrus’ – ‘once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in to the same box’. It was a really good one. None much better though than one of my own a couple of days back – ‘I wish life was cricket, I would have done so much better’
P.S. – ‘Ye sab behen di taki beer da kasoor hai’ hehe no no I don’t drink. I do make jokes and sarcastic comments. And ofcourse I hate alcohol, but lets leave it for some other time.