Here's a complete guide to the cast of characters and their nicknames. The cast will be updated as players are added or dropped or nicknames changed as the season progresses.
You can't run away forever.The entire gang was told to assemble at Gundappa Malki's residence by 11am sharp, with the latecomer's punishment being that he would have to sponsor everyone else's lunch. For years, the NCC has worked on IST (Indian Stretchable Time) standards but, incredibly, with mere seconds to go, the only one missing this time was Bob Loblaw (Manish, who has never been late for anything except when it comes to his bat making contact with the ball). Even as the cell phones turned over to display 11:00am, Bob came careening into the parking lot to (JJ) Energizer's intense chagrin. Foiled!
But there's nothing wrong in getting a good headstart.
- Meat Loaf
Captain Ozone (Damian) came up with a brilliant strategy to get the team to gel and connect with each other. Two mini-vans were commissioned to take the 12 members on the 125 mile drive to Des Moines. This way the team was split up into just two groups of players. Nothing unites 6 people more than finding funny and insulting things to say about the other 6 folks in the team! With 2.5 hours of such team-bonding on hand, Cap'n now had to contend with just two factions in the team!
The drive up to Des Moines was quite uneventful and the first close catching practice session of the season was hastily organized by Bhishma (Bhaskar) once they reached the ground. The odds of any fielder being this close to the bat when the ball is hit is remote, but some traditions die hard.
Ozone is deathly scared of losing the toss and has assigned Little Boy (Swarit) with the onerous task, thus ensuring that he has a scapegoat if things go against his plan. But LB is so lucky that even when he loses the toss, he manages to come out clean, as the opposition - Cedar Rapids "A" - chose to field (Ozone wanted to bat anyway)!
A quick pep talk by Ozone ("score lots of runs, score fast, don't get out" ... you know, the usual platitudes that are wasted on the team) was the signal for Bhishma and Thin Man (Bala) to go forth and begin the 2009 season. Thin Man got off to a rollicking start, pounding 33 runs in just 23 balls and after 6 overs the score was a smile-inducing 49 for no loss. There was one particularly memorable shot by Thin Man off the opening bowler that cleared long-on, the trees behind long-on, and also the road behind the trees behind long-on before finally landing in someone's front yard. It took about 10 minutes and half the players from both sides to find the ball. The bowler's ignominy was complete when he ended up being the one to find the damn ball. (Too bad Keyshawn Johnson wasn't at hand to retrieve it).
The first ball of the 7th over was the turning point in the match. Bhishma, who is sometimes too talented for his own good, in an attempt to "rotate the strike" tried to deflect a ball that he would have creamed through cover on any other day. Instead a regulation edge to first slip brought Chikna Slater (Jatin) to the crease. His whole innings was shorter than the time it took for Bhishma to remove one pad. A shuffle across the crease, a thud on the pads, and suddenly the bowler was on a hat trick!
Kingsize Dada (Abhi) calmly played out the hat-trick ball, and the next one, and the next one...and so on, bringing some peace to the proceedings. But at the other end, with the loss of quick wickets, Thin Man was in two minds about smashing the ball and gave a tame catch to gully to put NCC in a more serious hole. A good start was starting to unravel, but this team is not sufficient with converting the good into the not-so-good. Why stop at 3 when even more wickets can fall?!
Energizer had barely drawn a deep breath when he gave the cover fielder some catching practice, but not before watching Kingsize get out. Wait? Did I not tell you about that? Well, well, well...that deserves it's own paragraph.
That Kingsize likes the off-side is no secret and the opposition knew as much. What is life without a few challenges? Taking on the challenge of the 5 man ring on the off-side, Kingsize square-drove the ball to the fairly deep point fielder and took off down the wicket. Energizer stopped him from taking more than 4 or 5 steps but by then it was too late. Momentum = mass multiplied by velocity. For Kingsize to reverse his momentum is not as easy as it used to be (blame it on the Freshman 15...or 20). He had barely reversed directions before the keeper smashed all the stumps out of ground. Run-out by a country mile, as most Indian commentators (most of whom do not know that this is also a country mile) would say.
The Tasmanian Devil (Amit) and The Shadow (Botheju...I need to find out his proper name) pieced together a slowly building partnership. The type that would put DLF out of business because it is based upon singles and not sixes. Their running left much to be desired and, not surprisingly, a horrendous mix-up occurred and the Tasmanian thought he was really as fast as his cartoonish namesake and perished attempting a second run that was never there.
By the way, to say this middle-order collapsed would be an insult to middle-order collapses. In the blink of an eye (albeit a long protracted blink lasting about 9 overs) the score was around 75 for 7 with another 5 overs to negotiate.
Lord Warnie (Pradhip) hit a boundary and got carried away in trying to swing for the fences. Stumpings do not come any easier than the one that the opposing keeper had. He even had time to wipe away the drool before he smashed the wickets.
Now, Ozone and Loblaw were at the crease with memories of a similar situation in the 2008 CLIA finals fresh in their minds. On that occasion they had squandered it away with a needless run out and decided to eschew risks of any kind this time. Not surprisingly, not just two's but even three's were converted to singles. So averse were they to risk-taking that the 19th over, the penultimate one of the innings, yielded just one run. Bhishma, who was umpiring at this point, was heard negotiating with the opposition, offering to give the batsmen out if the bowler even cleared his throat in appeal. Sadly, the opposition thought he was joking!
Hearing this Bob took matters into his hands by pummeling the first ball of the 20th and last over into the square-leg fence, taking the team score beyond 100. Joyous celebrations ensued on the sidelines and even as the bystanders (two dogs, one rabbit, and five grasshoppers) settled down Bob was in their midst, having tested square-leg's prowess in taking swirling catches.
Little Boy finally got to walk into the middle during a batting innings in a live match. Marching up to the wicket with his jaw firmly set, he dreamt of ending the innings Kapil Dev-style with 4 consecutive sixes.
But the best laid plans of mice and not mice-like men never bear fruit. The two batsmen had crossed over while the catch was taken and Ozone gently drove the next ball to the cover fielder to end the innings on 104 with 3 balls still to go. Little Boy walked off with an extremely eye-catching and impressive 0 not out to his credit.
In between innings, the entire NCC team wandered into the middle and had an extensive fielding session. Strange but true, this was the first time all season the players had done any kind of fielding drills together. The opposition was totally bemused by the intensity of the session. Oblivious to thoughts of conserving energy, talking strategy, or simply taking a break, all 11 players had a fantastic round of ball retrieving.
The Cedar Rapids dudes came in and faced a charged-up Energizer and Bhishma. Here are the cold-hard facts: After 8 overs featuring 4 overs each by the two bowlers, the score was 30 for no loss. While I have your attention, here are some other facts:
- It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.
- You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
- It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
- Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.
- "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
But the most important fact is that all that fielding practice had a significant effect: NCC dropped 7 catches in those 8 overs with Ozone moving on from a catch-less 2008 to continue his streak of dropping at least one catch per match. (Rumor has it that he has trouble even catching a cold when he is drenched in the rain in the dead of winter). Not content with grassing one, he put down a second one that was even easier, off Bhishma's bowling. But you see, this was all part of a strategy that would pay off later on (more on that at the appropriate time).
Chikna was brought on first-change and his relentless desire to hit the base of middle stump paid off when the first wicket came down in a clatter of timber to bring a few smiles to the beleagured faces. A second wicket followed soon after but then Chikna and Kingsize lost control of the ball and were smashed, by Mike Strydom and Himashu, who took Kingisize for a couple of humungous sixes and a four to bring the asking rate down so much so that after 13 overs, CR"A" was at 67 for 2, needing just 37 runs in 42 balls with 8 wickets to spare. Driver's seats have rarely been more stoutly filled but NCC's secret weapons were still to be unleashed.
When catches were going down like nobody's business in the first 6 overs, what NCC was really doing was lulling CR"A" into a false sense of complacency. You see, had the fielders taken the catches then Cedar Rapids would have been more careful about getting the runs needed and would probably have coasted with 37 singles. But having been blinded by the prodigality of the NCC fielders they did not fear for their fate and began to loft the ball with reckless abandon. The trap had been set and they walked right in.
Ozone threw the ball to Warnie and, on debut, Warnie enticed Himanshu to swing for the fences. His desparing blade swished through without making any contact and the leg stump felt the full force of the ball. The door to victory, which had almost been shut completely, was now ajar. Like the rude guests that they are, the NCC-ers came charging through.
Complementing Warnie was the wicket-to-wicket bowling of the Tasmanian Devil. As the runs began to dry up, the pressure began to build and periodically the Cedar Rapids batsmen tried to relieve it by lofting the ball. The hunter became the hunted. Catch after catch was taken, none more impressive than the single-handed grab at backward square-leg by Thin Man, that was speeding by him. When a swirling hit towards long-off was safely pouched by Energizer the game was as good as over. For all his abundant skills in the nets, Energizer dropped (by a conservative count) a dozen catches last season. Seeing him hold on to the ball sent the team on a Monty Panesar-like celebratory outing (especially the last 10 seconds of this video).
In the 6 overs bowled between Warnie and TD, Cedar Rapids lost 8 wickets (the last one being a run-out to end the match) for 24 runs, getting all out for 91. NCC had yet again managed a get-out-of-jail victory that has been their trademark since they joined the CLIA.
One game, one win and the 2009 season is off to a good start. Sort of. As noted by Bhishma, NCC batted badly, bowled badly, and fielded badly...and yet won the game.
To mis-quote Meat Loaf, "None out of three ain't bad!"
2 comments:
I thought I would let it pass since the word involved is rather esoteric for most of us common folk!
But given that this is a bio professor I am writing to, I thought I should highlight that "almost" is the second longest word I know of with its letters in the right order - "aegilops" is the longest with 8 letters and "biopsy" and "chintz" both have 6 letters like "almost".
Sincerely.
I shall bow to your superior knowledge. I didn't even think of aegilops and even if I did I don't think I'd have made that association! I simply picked those facts from a website! :-)
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