I was always the shy guy while most of my classmates were outspoken and totally active. I spent most of the time in engineering waiting the same old green board that all my seniors might have watched. When I first entered the 1st year classroom, I was totally out of words to describe the classroom of 40 people waiting eagerly to interact and support each other. Within the first few days I made some friends in the classroom. Which I still remember till date to be the best of time we had in the classroom. To name some of the best people I have been friends with in the classroom, the list should include all 42 of my classmates as I have never had a chance of quarreling with any one of them.
The most probable reason might be that I hadn't had much time to spend with them in the first two years, by the time I reached third year of engineering it was totally like people know be better than I know about myself. Some of my juniors know me by my name but I never thought or anticipated that during the freshers party a group of 5-6 people all my juniors asked me what was my name? I still remember the incident till date. Mostly due to the insecure feeling in me that i have never turned up to any of the parties or movies in the first two years during which anyone who knows me could only find me in the library or the classroom. Even till my last semester in college i have an aggregate attendance percentage of 98 where others in my class used to pay challans for less attendance.
That was in my second year that I still remember, The venue was NTR Grounds at lower tank bund hyderabad. I was in the crazy costume u can call ( as i never had a chance of having professional cricket clothing) right in front of the batsman inside the nets with a long run-up to make the batsman get exhausted to wait the ball to be bowled. I started off with some of the mediocre bowling which was not appreciated by the captain of the team,( one of the seniors from Final Year) and was never given a second chance to bowl. after the team has been selected, there were those bowlers who needed some of the batting practice at the end. all the main batsman where tired batting inside the nets. So I thought this might be my chance to at least enter into the department team at least as a reserve. I asked the players if I could bowl again. with some resistance from few of the players i got those old balls in my hand and started to bowl at the nets. first few of the deliveries were again mediocre. The Captain once again iterated that his decision not to include me in the team was right.
I started again to have a go the batsman. This time more serious in my approach. I made all the balls pass by the bowler batsman without getting hit to the other end. After some 15 deliveries or so all the players started focusing at how I was bowling, since i had my classmates, two of them, already in the team, they were looking at how I was bowling. They liked it, appreciated it and finally I received the ball few more times to have a go at. this time bowling even better for every three deliveries to the bowlers i use to hit the wickets on the third always.
But when finally I was called by the Captain and he said me one thing, you are a good bowler no doubt in it, but we would leave the college this year, so I wanted to give my classmate a last chance to be in the department team. you have two more years to go, so don't worry and practice again.
That year we were out of the college cricket tournament after the first match itself.
The next year I have gone to the cricket selections this time the captain being my immediate senior. I was much better as a bowler in the nets all the time. I was picked-up in the team as a seam bowler bowling the first spell in the match. To ascertain that we wouldn't loose the first match, we had a practice match. where we played with one of the mighty teams of BVRIT.
To my surprise, I was not given the newball to have seam movement, also that I never fared well in that match. Finally it was decided to drop me from the team after the match was over. I finally felt I was never a good cricketer at all. Lost all hopes that I would ever play in the BVRIT tournament. I came back home and was dissappointed at my own performance. I was not given the new ball with which i was bowling very well. when i played as a first change bowler i have given away plenty of runs. I have fielded at fine leg never did I fielded at that position during all my cricket matches, so it was an ackward location for me. It was quite difficult for me to adjust for the bad and ugly bounces some times and right and left handed batsman sometimes.
so i was dropped from the team after the match. Some how i was still hoping and praying god that i would get back into the team and finally god heard my prayers sorry to say this but the person who took the new ball in the practice match has strained his leg during a basketball game which we regularly used to play in the college. so i was back in the team this time without a second thought i was brought back to my favourite place. New ball was handed over to me. the first ball a widish delevery. it would be easily gone to four had luck cheated me, but for everybodies surprise. the fielder some how stopped it at the cover boundary picked and had a go directly at the stumps. That was a run-out on the first debut match first delevery in the match. That was good for me, i gave away 6 runs in that over with single on every ball. The second over was fine without a wicket which was bowled by my classmate, he was our team captain the subsequent year. The Third over was a mirracle of sorts for me. I had the batsman beaten on the first delevery of the over, second one moving into the batsman and the classic way we see V.V.S Lakshman gets out for an inswinger. the third one was a repeat of the second ball. suddenly fourth was a beat and again fifth delivery i picked up a wicket. after the end of the over my figures were 2 overs 10 runs and 3 wickets,excluding one run-out. the third over was a normal one once again i ended up with figures of 3 overs 3 wickets for 16 runs.
