Teams Meeting, 23 January
Jigme and I go for the team meeting since our captain D is not much of a speaker. As we joke, he is the captain only in terms of collecting money and going for the toss. The meeting throws up a curious mixture of people and I gather only cricket could dare summon such a motley crowd with scant regard to an age group criterion. Jigme’s premonition that we would witness some comedy comes true as an akhula, old enough to be our father, stands up and makes up with his garrulousness for what he may lack on the field in the coming days. We learn that he has not picked up a ball in two years (so he’s a bowler), only the love of cricket and participating in the first ever Tibetan Premier League has induced him to come out of (self imposed) retirement. He goes on and his talk is interspersed with digressions and devious bends and marked by that overall emptiness of substance which is unique to our elders, especially MPs and Kungolas. But I am more occupied with observing people around me. The members from the Dharamsala team (with whom we have our first match) are two 30 somethings who I suspect must be school teachers from Tcvs. One of them comes up with suggestion that we should make effort to organise cricket clubs in our respective places since we are all “cricket la nyogyoe” (mad about cricket). With that comment alone he earns my respect for the next saat janam. Apparently they have a club in Dhasa called the Gangseng Club, well how much of a gangseng they are on the field tomorrow we'll know but as far as I know, our spot in semis is as good as made. In fact, when we were first told that our match was actually with Dhasa and not with Tsopema, Jigme’s first words were, ‘ oh Dhasa yina da drey drey zho choki rey’ (if it's Dhasa we can thrash them good). Never the one to jump the gun, Jigme aptly summed up the prematch feeling of our team with those words.
Then there are the ubiquitous monks. Two of them are young and look like good cricketers but there's also a senior monk who’s rather silent. There are few more uncle types and I am starting to feel glad about attending this meeting. It feels wonderfully good to hear akhulas discuss the rules of t20 cricket for a change.
They bring out the Cup which is not that bad looking as most sports trophies tend to be. It is passed around and Karma, the Bir captain remarks,'' No, not me. I will lift it only after the finals."
Day 1, vs Dharamsala, 24 January
We do march-past and then stand in the sun. The opening ceremony programs take quite a while to take off and I am starting to feel like a schoolboy on Sports day. They have brought Tsering Gyurmey and the usual suspects to add some festive air to the event but we are hardly bothered.
Our match is in the afternoon. I watch some part of the opening match and think it better to get some rest before the match. Jigme and I go and sleep on the lawns.
We win the toss and choose to bat first. Rinchen and I are opening and I notice my legs are shaking slightly. The ball is swinging as well. It’s misery as I mistime a drive and am out to a good catch in the 4th over. but Jigme and Rinchen put on a good partnership and thanks to an abundance of extras we manage a respectable 107.
Gyurmey gives us the perfect start with a first ball wicket in the opening over. This is some feeling. And in the corner of my mind I feel sorry for the opener who’s the same decent guy who was there in the meeting. Dhasa plunge further into disarray as Gyurmey strikes again in the same over and I too do the same in my opening over. They are 4 down in the 6th over.
Then we nearly lose it with some poor back up bowling but Jigme is the star as he breaks the 6th wkt partnership and takes 2 wkts in 2 balls. We win by 7 runs.
We are sharing the ground floor of this community center with two other teams. I see two of the akhulas doing the prayers before sleeping – I told you, they could be our daddies. But then one of them gets a call and the ring tone goes ‘ oh baby baby, wooh, thought you’d always be mine!’ Well, our daddies? Not quite.
I suggest to Jigme that we should also do prayers and even prostations in unison just to horse around with those akhulas. We get a kick out of suggesting how they’d go ‘ now look at those Delhi students, they are just as good off the field as they were on it.’
Day 2, vs Tsopema, 25 January
The Bir match is at 8 am but Jigme and I have planned to go to watch Dobhi Ghat. The Bir team cheered good for us yesterday, I hope some of our guys do return the favour.
It turns out that the two morning matches are rather one sided and over in jiffy and we think we might be late. But when we get to the stadium, they have another performance going on. This time I quite enjoy hearing Chodak sing ‘Rinzin Wangmo’. This ex-army guy sings a Nepali song which rather baffles me, I mean if he didn’t know a good Tibetan song, he couldn’t have gone wrong with a nice Hindi song. Anyways we lose the toss and are bowling.
Since i bowled rather well in the first match, I am opening with Gyurmey. He bowls a decent first over. I bowl 2 wides. Then in my second over I bowl the opener with one that keeps low. Next comes this big monk who I recognize is the same silent one who was there at the meeting. By the noise they are making in their camp I gather he’s some kind of a hitter. He sure looks like one. I bowl a straight one that pitches perfectly and wraps on the pads. We all go up in this massive appeal - for us who are so used to playing without LBW rules, there is an added joy in seeing the umpire’s index finger go up as you appeal. It’s as if as your vocal chords start in excitement with a shout and then strain and go hoarse in appeal, the deliverance comes in slow steps from the other end and meets you halfway to put you in bliss. It's 2 in 2 for me and a hat-trick really seems on. I hardly remember seeing the batsman walk up and take his guard. In a daze I run up and bowl another straight one, just short of a decent yorker and it sneaks in like a thief, just kissing the pads and crashing on to the stumps! Oh boy, and before the tournament I was thinking perhaps I should just concentrate on my batting and give up bowling...
But our bowling is poor after that, and fielding poorer. There are over-throws, misfields and we are looking like a bunch of fools. Near the end, we do accomplish a breakthrough but still they manage to set us a challenging target of 109.
We had heard all along from others how they have good bowlers. When I go in to bat after the loss of two early wickets, I am determined to try my luck and bat freely. But I can hardly find any boundaries though I like the sound of my shots. I am scoring mainly in singles and doubles. With Rinchen and then with Kunleg, I have good partnerships but soon panic sets in. Gyurmey comes in and takes his guard on the off stump! I could have burst out laughing right there if it wasn’t for the sorry situation we were finding ourselves in. Well, it only gets worse after that and I find myself in the unenviable situation of being not out and running out of overs. We lose by some 12 runs.
After the match, back in our room we are sort of trying to sleep when this monk from Tsopema team comes in. He’s the same one who put the brakes on us with his quick leg breaks and turned the match. He is polite and compliments us for how we gave them a hard time. I try my best to ignore him but Jigme is more than happy to indulge in useless post-match analysis. All I can think of now is going back to Delhi. I think of Martin Sheen, '' When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. ''
Jigme and I go for the team meeting since our captain D is not much of a speaker. As we joke, he is the captain only in terms of collecting money and going for the toss. The meeting throws up a curious mixture of people and I gather only cricket could dare summon such a motley crowd with scant regard to an age group criterion. Jigme’s premonition that we would witness some comedy comes true as an akhula, old enough to be our father, stands up and makes up with his garrulousness for what he may lack on the field in the coming days. We learn that he has not picked up a ball in two years (so he’s a bowler), only the love of cricket and participating in the first ever Tibetan Premier League has induced him to come out of (self imposed) retirement. He goes on and his talk is interspersed with digressions and devious bends and marked by that overall emptiness of substance which is unique to our elders, especially MPs and Kungolas. But I am more occupied with observing people around me. The members from the Dharamsala team (with whom we have our first match) are two 30 somethings who I suspect must be school teachers from Tcvs. One of them comes up with suggestion that we should make effort to organise cricket clubs in our respective places since we are all “cricket la nyogyoe” (mad about cricket). With that comment alone he earns my respect for the next saat janam. Apparently they have a club in Dhasa called the Gangseng Club, well how much of a gangseng they are on the field tomorrow we'll know but as far as I know, our spot in semis is as good as made. In fact, when we were first told that our match was actually with Dhasa and not with Tsopema, Jigme’s first words were, ‘ oh Dhasa yina da drey drey zho choki rey’ (if it's Dhasa we can thrash them good). Never the one to jump the gun, Jigme aptly summed up the prematch feeling of our team with those words.
Then there are the ubiquitous monks. Two of them are young and look like good cricketers but there's also a senior monk who’s rather silent. There are few more uncle types and I am starting to feel glad about attending this meeting. It feels wonderfully good to hear akhulas discuss the rules of t20 cricket for a change.
They bring out the Cup which is not that bad looking as most sports trophies tend to be. It is passed around and Karma, the Bir captain remarks,'' No, not me. I will lift it only after the finals."
Day 1, vs Dharamsala, 24 January
We do march-past and then stand in the sun. The opening ceremony programs take quite a while to take off and I am starting to feel like a schoolboy on Sports day. They have brought Tsering Gyurmey and the usual suspects to add some festive air to the event but we are hardly bothered.
Our match is in the afternoon. I watch some part of the opening match and think it better to get some rest before the match. Jigme and I go and sleep on the lawns.
We win the toss and choose to bat first. Rinchen and I are opening and I notice my legs are shaking slightly. The ball is swinging as well. It’s misery as I mistime a drive and am out to a good catch in the 4th over. but Jigme and Rinchen put on a good partnership and thanks to an abundance of extras we manage a respectable 107.
Gyurmey gives us the perfect start with a first ball wicket in the opening over. This is some feeling. And in the corner of my mind I feel sorry for the opener who’s the same decent guy who was there in the meeting. Dhasa plunge further into disarray as Gyurmey strikes again in the same over and I too do the same in my opening over. They are 4 down in the 6th over.
Then we nearly lose it with some poor back up bowling but Jigme is the star as he breaks the 6th wkt partnership and takes 2 wkts in 2 balls. We win by 7 runs.
We are sharing the ground floor of this community center with two other teams. I see two of the akhulas doing the prayers before sleeping – I told you, they could be our daddies. But then one of them gets a call and the ring tone goes ‘ oh baby baby, wooh, thought you’d always be mine!’ Well, our daddies? Not quite.
I suggest to Jigme that we should also do prayers and even prostations in unison just to horse around with those akhulas. We get a kick out of suggesting how they’d go ‘ now look at those Delhi students, they are just as good off the field as they were on it.’
Day 2, vs Tsopema, 25 January
The Bir match is at 8 am but Jigme and I have planned to go to watch Dobhi Ghat. The Bir team cheered good for us yesterday, I hope some of our guys do return the favour.
It turns out that the two morning matches are rather one sided and over in jiffy and we think we might be late. But when we get to the stadium, they have another performance going on. This time I quite enjoy hearing Chodak sing ‘Rinzin Wangmo’. This ex-army guy sings a Nepali song which rather baffles me, I mean if he didn’t know a good Tibetan song, he couldn’t have gone wrong with a nice Hindi song. Anyways we lose the toss and are bowling.
Since i bowled rather well in the first match, I am opening with Gyurmey. He bowls a decent first over. I bowl 2 wides. Then in my second over I bowl the opener with one that keeps low. Next comes this big monk who I recognize is the same silent one who was there at the meeting. By the noise they are making in their camp I gather he’s some kind of a hitter. He sure looks like one. I bowl a straight one that pitches perfectly and wraps on the pads. We all go up in this massive appeal - for us who are so used to playing without LBW rules, there is an added joy in seeing the umpire’s index finger go up as you appeal. It’s as if as your vocal chords start in excitement with a shout and then strain and go hoarse in appeal, the deliverance comes in slow steps from the other end and meets you halfway to put you in bliss. It's 2 in 2 for me and a hat-trick really seems on. I hardly remember seeing the batsman walk up and take his guard. In a daze I run up and bowl another straight one, just short of a decent yorker and it sneaks in like a thief, just kissing the pads and crashing on to the stumps! Oh boy, and before the tournament I was thinking perhaps I should just concentrate on my batting and give up bowling...
But our bowling is poor after that, and fielding poorer. There are over-throws, misfields and we are looking like a bunch of fools. Near the end, we do accomplish a breakthrough but still they manage to set us a challenging target of 109.
We had heard all along from others how they have good bowlers. When I go in to bat after the loss of two early wickets, I am determined to try my luck and bat freely. But I can hardly find any boundaries though I like the sound of my shots. I am scoring mainly in singles and doubles. With Rinchen and then with Kunleg, I have good partnerships but soon panic sets in. Gyurmey comes in and takes his guard on the off stump! I could have burst out laughing right there if it wasn’t for the sorry situation we were finding ourselves in. Well, it only gets worse after that and I find myself in the unenviable situation of being not out and running out of overs. We lose by some 12 runs.
After the match, back in our room we are sort of trying to sleep when this monk from Tsopema team comes in. He’s the same one who put the brakes on us with his quick leg breaks and turned the match. He is polite and compliments us for how we gave them a hard time. I try my best to ignore him but Jigme is more than happy to indulge in useless post-match analysis. All I can think of now is going back to Delhi. I think of Martin Sheen, '' When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. ''
No comments:
Post a Comment