#3's tour of Kodai - Day 2

Day 2 - 21/05/2006

One thing that completely permeated every aspect of the tour was “the Upendra factor”. If we thought the boys from Katpadi constituted a fan club for Narendra, they couldn’t hold a candle to the entire town of Kodaikanal. And add the presence of Deepa (“Anu” to Kolangal watchers) and you’ve got screaming fans lining the streets. Well, almost. From Sundar Anna, to the opposing team members, to the owners of the house, to the teachers at Sriram’s school, to the general public, they all wanted a piece of the action. The pair of them got stared at, pointed at, and were dragged off to be photographed everywhere they went. The lady who cooked and kept house for us even got a large contingent of her family to dress up and come over for the photo op. The small screen certainly makes stars down here, and don’t let anyone tell you different. God help us all.

Woke up, showered (well, some of us did), pulled on soiled uniforms and we were ready to set out. Hui naturally came in to the XI, but who was to be left out? Well, Palanivel Rajan had taken care of part of the problem. Turned out Anand wasn’t allowed anywhere near the train the previous night as pretty much the entire DMK from Chennai was traveling to his funeral. No Anand, then, sadly. And what Palanival Rajan had started, Tony finished. Even a nuclear explosion couldn’t have gotten him out of bed after the revelry of the previous night, and we left the room with exactly eleven players. Problem solved. Incidentally, he never did turn up at the ground and we later learned that he only woke up at three in the afternoon.

I suppose I do have to report on the game, don’t I? This was a cricket tour, and this is a cicket blog. Ok, ok, here it is. But it wasn’t pretty. As agreed, the toss was academic and we put them in. Sundar Anna walked out to open, along with the top scorer from yesterday. Vik and Joy actually bowled rather well, but it made no difference whatsoever. They spent the first couple of overs running sharp singles, but then the boundaries began. In his second or third over, Vik, our best bowler, bowled one on a nice length, swinging slightly away and Sundar Anna calmly moved on to the front foot and sent it sailing over his head for six. Vik started clapping even before he had completed his follow through, and fears of that century were becoming very, very real.

Joy however provided a double breakthrough. He got Sundar Anna lbw (attempting and missing a rather ambitious shot) and one more, yet another ‘sitter’ by iii (kneeler, actually). Upendra followed up with one in his first over, and at 67 for 3, even given the high run rate, we were doing spectacularly well. That was as good as it got. The fourth wicket partnership tore into us. They started by consolidating and picking up the singles, before slamming Narendra and Lex for a few. By the time the spinners came on, they were ready. They hammered anything and everything to all parts, and if not for the unique outfield limitations, they would have got even more. We reverted to the quicks, with Vik in particular bowling a fine second spell, and we started picking up wickets as the slog was on. But when the no.10 batsman walks in and plays an exquisite cover drive off his first ball, you sort of know you’re outclassed. Hui came on to bowl the last over, and promptly produced the best over he’s bowled for #3, hitting almost perfect lengths. His fifth ball looped nicely, dropped on a dime, spun past the batsman’s swinging blade and knocked middle out of the ground. It was a thing of beauty, and a rare high for us. They didn’t even bother sending a batsman out for the last ball, and finished on 230 for 9 in one ball short of 30 overs, with one guy getting 89.

Sriram and Ramesh opened, our only chance of making something happen. The bowler bowing the second over started with two wide deliveries, bowled one legal ball and then bowled six more wides on the trot. But he’d done more than enough with that one ball, because it induced an edge off Sriram’s bat that was safely taken at slip. Ramesh was bowled early on as well, and on that outfield, the game was pretty much up. Hui was promoted as a pich hitter and completed a decent match for himself by hanging around and not looking totally out of depth. Kishore, batting with a runner, and Indrabeer were the only two who had anything close to a decent tour with the bat across both matches and got a few runs, but it was dismal overall, really. The main highlight being that when iiii walked out with a runner as well, Kishore was still in. So, two batsmen, two runners, and superb confusion all around. It was a hoot. In the end, we didn’t even last the distance, being bowled out for 77 well within our quota of overs. Much happiness and photography followed, and we were off, promising we’d be back, and that we’d put up a better show next time.

Lunch at the school again, but no meditation point chilling this time, as half the guys were headed back to Chennai on the night train. The specter of rain had loomed large over both matches, but as with all other things, it just fit neatly into place it stayed away just long enough began to gently drizzle as we completed lunch and made for some enjoyable rain football post lunch. By the time we got back, batch 1 was all packed and ready to go. Good byes and last minute upendra snaps done, they were off. They apparently had a fun drive down, but I’ll leave it to someone else (Wretch? Beer?) to write about that.

Booze scored by Tony this time. He had to do something, we weren’t going to let him spend an entire day chilling without leaving the room. A more chilled but equally enjoyable night, where we were entertained by the truly inimitable T Rajendar among others (somebody post the youtube links, these guys need to see that shit). But as the evening wore on, we realized that the late Palanivel Rajan wasn’t done with us. Frantric phone calls were flying between Kodai Rd, Kodai and Chennai as we realized the tickets for these guys weren’t confirmed and the rush of politicos meant that the EQ scene was also tough. Classic ‘call Kishore’s mom’ scenes ensued and all the guys finally got berths, though on the next train which was a couple of hours later. They passed the time cutting at the station, I’m told, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose.