It is that incident of my college days when I got selected by default for my college cricket team by our coach who may have selected me in the eleven by seeing me in whiter dress. One sudama was the one who got left out. The game began at the Vaish College Rohtak ground and we as students of Hindu College were playing against the university eleven which had a few Ranji players like Rajesh Bawa in the team.
Well university eleven batted first and scored some decent runs. Now it was our turn and the openers opened the innings well and were doing well until the wickets started falling…from 34 for 3 it board read 43 for 9 in no time and now it was MY turn to go for the batting and our captain Parvesh Gupta said ravi bus sidhe khelna aur ball ko bat sey rok dena. I tried doing that but outside the ground there was a loud whisper that yaar agar sudama hota toh kya badiya khelta.
But I kept on playing calmly, scoring just 9 runs in the process. When on 9, I deliberately took a single in order to avoid the bouncers of Rajesh Bawa. Finally the captain got out and I stayed not out on 9. But in second innings along with some Shiv Kumar, I somehow took the mentor’s role and I scored 17 runs…my best score during college days cricket:-|
Ravi Juneja
