Cricket has always been a sport close to my heart, and when I landed in the United States, I wasn't sure if cricket would exist here. One day, I was randomly studying in the library, and I suddenly got a flier from the college saying that there would be a cricket tournament in Keating. I grew super excited and wanted to really be part of this and also captain a team and see how it goes. I have been passionate about cricket from a young age. Having watched almost every single match organized by the Indian Premier League (IPL) and played district-level cricket matches, it was a proud moment to be chosen as the captain for the match. I gathered my roommates and my friends around, and we decided to play. Although not everyone knew exactly how to play, they were interested in the fun element of it. I also decided not to be competitive about things and take it easy and have fun (spoiler alert - I got competitive, and things got messy). We walked into the stadium for our first match, and being master's in data science students, we did our analysis on the opponent team and realized that we had absolutely no chance of winning.
They won the toss, chose to bowl, and the match began. Our top player, who I had all my high hopes on, was the one who went first to bat, and I was standing on the other side of the pitch thinking about our average score and how much we could score in eight overs. I suddenly heard "Howzattt." I turned in dismay and looked over to my star batsman, who walked out of the pitch with his head down. I turned to the umpire and asked what had happened, and he told me that he had gotten out for a golden duck, which meant he was out on the first ball. As if this was not enough, the next player went out the moment he got in, and I slowly came back to reality as I was just standing there and begged the next person to play it slow.
He came in, and the first ball he played, he played a beautiful cover drive, and I was taken back to my cloud nine. The next ball, I was ready to run since I realized that we had to start scoring runs. The bowler bowled the ball, and the stump blew away, and I lost my temper and started shouting. Since my team had almost lost hope, they did not seem really worried, and I became super angry and decided to take things into my hands and went over to them and gave them an earful, and came back. In the end, we barely made it to double digits, and this is not the part where this turned into a heroic moment where we came back and never gave up sort of a thing. We were battered by the other team, and it took me a couple of hours to calm down and actually get myself back to normal.
I am sure the next semester will be better than it was this semester since it will be a known environment, and I can play better. I am writing this article so cricket enthusiasts like me can join the tournament next semester and have fun together.