Skirting to victory

The Omaha Cricket Club recently conducted a tennis ball Twenty20 tournament. The finals pitted the hosts, OCC, against the local tennis ball giants of Omaha - Citadel XI. The following is a report of the match. If you do not understand some of the references, let it slide. If you do understand some of them, don't fret over it if it bothers you, as the account is being written (for the most part) with my tongue firmly in my cheek. As always, in the interests of privacy, actual names are being shielded.

In the aftermath of the finals, many interested folks who were not present at the ground last Sunday have asked us about the outcome of the game. The deathly silence on our part should have given it away. Citadel XI won the match, but not necessarily, the game. You'll understand what I mean...read on.

We won the toss...let me rephrase - S_____"Lucky Tosser" A_____ won the toss. By the way, here is an aside...a knock knock joke for everyone. It is partly in Hindi so ask someone for a translation if you do not understand.

Knock, knock
Who's there?
Agarwal
Agarwal who?
Agar wall nahi hota, to ghar kaise hota.

Anyway, I digress. After LT (see above) won the toss, Camelot was convened, i.e. all the members of the OCC were summoned by King Arthur (S_____ M_____) and Lancelot (B_____ K_____) to discuss what to do (not with the coin; I am sure LT pocketed the quarter used for the coin toss when no one was looking). The round-table discussion yielded many an opinion, the most confusing one coming from F_____ "Kamikaze" O_____, who said that we should look to finish the match by 1:30pm, surely unhelpful advice as no one quite knew what to say for about 10 seconds.

King Arthur decided to bat first, no doubt influenced by the gloomy England-like conditions, and an affliction of Dravid-itis (in reference to the erstwhile Indian captain who insisted on batting first every time he won the toss, even in bowler-friendly conditions, simply because he wanted to ensure that we "got used" to playing in adverse conditions). However, Kamikaze O_____ and C.S. "Long emails" M_____ were selected to be the first lambs to the slaughter, i.e. the opening batsmen.

Kamikaze and Long Emails walked in to thundering applause ... from the opposition who licked their lips in anticipation, like Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight". (You HAVE to watch that movie, by the way, before it becomes so hyped that it will be popular to say that you have NOT watched it).

Swinging the ball with unerring accuracy and able to extract prodigious lift the opening bowlers of Citadel tested every sinew and nerve that the openers could muster. Sadly, the reality was more benign than that. The tennis ball comes out of the hand at a tremendous speed and even as it travels in the air it loses momentum faster than Brittney Spears's career. Once it hits the ground, it stops for a eternity, pondering the meaning of life, before it resumes its journey towards the stumps. For the OCC bowlers, for some unfathomable reason, the ball behaves in a less erratic fashion, but never mind that.

In two overs of blistering pace, the openers were back in the confines of the shed. After 5 overs OCC was positively motoring along at a rollicking pace that would put Chris Tavaré to shame - 2.4 runs per over. Having now reduced the game to effectively a 15 over contest, OCC got down to the business end of things. Platitudes like "losing wickets at regular intervals" can be freely interespersed in the text now, and before long King Arthur was looking for anyone in the team who was not out. But before that stage was reached, S_____ M_____ running like a hare being chased by a hound between the wickets gave JJ "Night Owl" T_____ admirable support. The score moved along well. Night Owl hit a splendid four through covers, slammed a six over square-leg, and was making amends for his brain freeze of the previous day, until he got out for 41 brilliant runs. B_____ "Lancelot" K_____ went in and used the strong breeze to hit a huge six over square-leg. But where was the challenge in that? True to his nickname, he targeted the wind and hit a lovely 8 iron - it went up in the air, said hello to the gale-force wind, and then dropped as rapidly as a meatball sandwich is by a temple priest. Unfortunately, the fielder at long-on was not a devout Hindu and had no compunctions about grabbing the treat. Riotously joyous celebrations ensued in the Citadel group hug.

But they had not reckoned with Arthur's ultimate secret weapon - "Rajanikath" M_____. Yesterday M_____ was informed about the ICL ad where the batsman stops the ball in mid-air and asks the crowd where they want it. Thus inspired, Rajani M_____ lit a cigarette with his bare palm (ask LT how it is done or watch this video), and slammed the ball like it was a repeat offender in prison, sending it to places it had not gone before (but would go many a time when Citadel batted). In the twinkling of an eye the score surged past Abraham Lincoln (four score and seven = 87), Half-Nelson (111), K. Srikkanth's personal highest (123), twelve squared (you can calculate this yourself), before finally settling at a seemingly mammoth 156. M_____ remained not out at the same score as Night Owl, as he did not want to overshadow the stellar performance of his teammate.

The mood in the OCC huddle was upbeat, so much so that the team did some stretching exercises while the rest of the audience watched in bemusement as LT proved to be more flexible and graceful than Kamikaze, whose idea of stretching involves opening his mouth as wide as he can to yawn. Suitably limbered up, OCC had another huddle (yes, King Arthur is big on huddles) and took the field with great enthusiasm. The first over by Lancelot (B_____) yielded one run - a wide to start proceedings - and Citadel was under the cosh. The next over by Night Owl (JJ) produced several near-misses - a six and two fours being among the more memorable ones as the batsmen nearly missed hitting sixes off every ball. The one time the ball reached a fielder it settled into Lancelot's hands like a new-born baby in a mother's hands. Unfortunately for OCC, Lancelot suffered the same fate as the villain in Lagaan, giving up a six because he was outside the boundary. Along the way, Lancelot got a ball to jag back into the nether regions of the opener. The person most affected by this was the dude farthest from the action - Kamikaze O_____ fielding at long-on. Memories of getting his jewels nearly restructured by the innocuous-looking tennis ball in an earlier match has put the terror of everything holy into Kamikaze, who trembles in abject fear any time the ball comes even within 12 inches of you-know-where.

A couple of overs later Citadel's captain and opener, S_____ lofted a ball that reached the 30 yard circle at mid-off but the swirling catch was spilled. For some vague reason, S_____ was heard muttering, "Son, you just dropped the World Cup." Considering that this was just the OCC tennis ball Twenty20, it seemed a tad too grandiose for a few of us to stomach. In Lancelot's next over high-jinks erupted. That deserves it own paragraph. To tide you over while you wait for the next paragraph to begin, enjoy this clip of THAT moment when Herschelle Gibbs let something slip through his fingers.

Lancelot bowled a ball that was wide of the stumps, S_____ swung towards the general vicinity of R____'s corner (named for the spot in the woods where R_____ has deposited numerous cricket balls). Unfortunately for S_____, he edged the ball which was grabbed with alacrity by Rajani M_____, behind the stumps. Up went the umpire's finger and OCC was delirious with pleasure. Until...the batsman protested that he had missed the ball, threw his bat, and asked the square-leg umpire for his opinion. The square-leg umpire claimed that while he had heard a nick he did not observe any deflection, so he "consulted" with the main umpire, and the decision was reversed. I could probably write a thesis (some would say I already am) about how erroneous this whole slate of events was from the perspective of the umpires but that is girst for a different mill. (Law 27.5 of the Laws of Cricket clearly states that the leg-umpire's jurisdiction is restricted to addressing hitwicket, stumped, and run-out decisions.)

Five minutes of verbal jousting ensued and eventually the batsman picked up his bat and resumed his innings. Two balls later, S_____ began his carnage - depositing Lancelot beyond the practice nets. Shoulders began drooping as every swing of the vengeful blade sent the ball soaring further and further beyond the fence. Long Emails had to go to the doctor later that evening for the whiplash injuries he suffered every time he followed the trajectory of the ball over his head while fielding at the deep sqaure-leg boundary. Eventually the other opener was cleaned up by someone on OCC - it is academic who the bowler was because that catch by Kamikaze will linger on in my memory for years to come. A fiercely hit square-cut (some apologists will claim it was more of a gentle swipe, but this is my story so pay attention to MY words) was taken by Kamikazee as it reached its apogee. The astounding reflexes and anticipation shown by Origanti were a sight to behold. Luckily for us, we have exclusive video footage of that catch.

Oh, by the way, when the first wicket fell the score was 146. No, that is not a typo. Here's the amazing conincidence...remember how OCC scored 12 runs in their first 5 overs? Well, believe it or not, the mirror image came up when Citadel batted - they needed 12 runs in the last 5 overs to finish the macth. If this isn't a sign that the end of the world is near, I don't know what is.

With one run to win, OCC had the last laugh (a small one, more like a stifled giggle, but it counts) when S_____ flicked a ball straight to the fine-leg fielder (and yes, he does have fine legs, I am told by reliable OCC sources Night Owl and Lancelot) to get out for a vengeful 92, inclusive of 11 sixes. OCC then harbored visions of pulling off a tie. After all, Citadel had just 3.3 overs left, and only 8 wickets in hand to get that one run, so theroetically it was possible. It was also possible for Kamikaze to escape a beating from his wife, but these are all dreams. Needless to say, in the end what we expected happened - Kamikaze got thoroughly beaten up by his wife and, oh yes, by the way, Citadel got the one run they needed to win the championship. Here's footage of the Citadel supporters enjoying the moment of victory.

So, there you have it. A detailed account of the final of the OCC Twenty20 tennis ball tournament. We will be lucky if we can get the same quality of enjoyment when we conduct the MidWest Twenty20 tournament in August. One can only hope that Kamikaze's divorce will be finalized by then so he can devote his entire attention towards running that tournament. After all, he does know a Chinese reataurant that makes the best chicken fried rice, ever!