A memorable cricket match

It was a bright sunny morning in the month of March. The temperature was hovering around 40 degrees Celsius and there was no wind to graze my hair. My five other friends and I were playing cricket in our society’s ground. My teammates got out early and I ended up batting alone with 10 more overs to go. The other team had a formidable bowling attack comprising a good combination of pace and spin. They had also won the previous two games against us that morning. Also, for the past few days I had not been scoring well and getting out early in the games.  

In short, I was feeling the heat personally and was under extreme pressure to win the game for my side. That’s when I started playing my natural game and just watched the ball till the end and tried to middle it. I did not try to hit each and every ball for runs. Instead, I tried to stay there and survive the first few overs so that I could settle in. And after facing a few balls, I started to hit runs. I picked the lost balls and made full use of those opportunities. I smacked the bowlers for a few boundaries but with a lot of caution and discipline. Also, in such innings, an important strategy is to get runs by running between the wickets as much as possible. That’s exactly what I did. I ran a lot. In the scorching heat, I could feel my energy going down as the overs progressed but I kept on playing and scoring as much as I could. Finally, in no time I scored a half century and then finally finished off with 65 runs off 59 balls. This was certainly a good score in such circumstances.  

I was very happy with my performance and at the end of the game, I felt satisfied. It felt good to be among the runs again while also creating a chance for our team to win. When our bowling turn came, we managed to get the other team’s wickets in the first four-five overs itself thereby winning the game. This was certainly a victory I savour a lot and learnt a lot from. 

Viraj is a student of Ridge Valley School. Views expressed are personal.