The Rest of Season 3 (And I’m not referring to my blogging efforts)

Finally. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Firstly, to bring one and all up to date, we are presently six games into season 4. I will elaborate on the happenings of the current season in subsequent posts, but in the interests of maintaining the chronological nature of the blog, I will deal with the considerable matter of Season 3 first. And an action packed season it was, too. This post will form the beginning of a summary of sorts and further posts (by me and others, I’m hoping) will elaborate on specific things of note.

Eventually, I think Season 3 will be remembered largely as “the Sriram Builder season”. This has nothing to do with the development of our captain, but rather it is the name of a team that we played thrice in one season, with three very different outcomes. I like to think that the results of those games were a kind of mini snapshot of our team’s development as a whole – something that I believe has been borne out by the events of season 4. Sriram builder is also memorable for the presence of “The Producer”, who I”ll leave it to others to describe in detail. But more on all that later.

Games 2 and 3 were rather similar, and both were played at YMCA ‘A’, the home of nets. One was played against a vague chom team who’s name no one seems to remember, and the other against our old pals “My Club” - Poonam’s team, including the left handed Manoj, who was to prove our nemesis yet again. We chased on both games and fell rather well short, but Sriram played a particularly smashing innings against Poonam’s team and belted Manoj’s medium pace for a six that apparently still gives him nightmares. All please chip in with other things that may have stuck in the mind for whatever reason.

Game 4, however, was a low point. It marked the beginning of the Sriram Builder saga, and was the first game we played at YMCA ‘B’. A really strange ground (for those who know, it’s the one right next to our nets, an overgrown weed patch of a ground). Ok, actually it’s a fucked up ground. And seems to consistently bring out the very worst in our fielding, as we learnt over the course of the season. We started the game by losing the toss (BIG surprise there) and what’s worse both Kishore and Mohan decided to use today to demonstrate some true lateness. And in the field, we couldn’t catch ANYTHING. It all started when Hui and Mohan clashed going for a really simple catch to break a hard hitting second wicket partnership, and the floodgates really opened. The unofficial count stood at something like 14 (yes, fourteen) dropped catches as they proceeded to flay us all over the really small and incredibly weirdly angled ground (It was a place where you could walk away square of the wicket and instead of finding yourself at point, you’d be at third man, or equally likely at cover. Very disorienting). Kishore eventually landed up, somewhere around drinks, and promptly dropped a catch! We eventually got a few wickets, but not before both the batsmen had scored fifties. The captain eventually slogged his way to eighty plus and they ended up with a score of over 220.

We chased well. Sriram and Mohan really got stuck into them for a 50 and a 40 odd respectively, and we were in with a chance until they both were out. But 14 dropped catches is bound to get you in the end, and we ended up about 35 runs short. We left with a bad taste in the mouth, sure in our minds that we were a much more skilled side.

For both games 3 and 4, we had an overseas visitor in Inis, and it’s a shame we couldn’t put up a better show. But things got better, believe you me. That’s it for now, folks, more in the next post. Thanks for keeping the faith and the repeated visits and requests. Now contribute. Please?