I am sure , you must have heard of “ cricket fans “ , “cricket love “ , etc etc .. but never heard of “CRICKET PHOBIA “ and that too specifically if you are a guy . Sorry , no gender bias intended but generally guys are inclined too much towards sports , races , games and so on . On the contrary, gals are well known for shopping , tantrums , coddles , fashion , TV soaps , and last but not the least “ fan following” . On reading the title , few must me laughing with the feeling of pity .But I hope you understand my part too ...... " A gal who is educated in a girls' school and was never allowed to play in gully ".
Well , I guess , I am not the only one . I wish and really hope that there are people like me who have no idea of what cricket is even when they are ready to complete the silver jubilee of their life .
I have one embarrassing moment related to Cricket or rather a string of embarrassing moments when it comes to Cricket .
Well , first among them was when once I was in office and had a laptop in my hand from which internet can be accessed ( Laying emphasis on access because in ODC i.e offshore development center we don't have access to internet or so called bahari duniyaaa . ) One colleague of mine came to me and asked for the laptop. I was busy doing some urgent piece of work and asked him to wait for 10-15 min . He requested - " Okay .. don't hand it over to me , but atleast let me know the current score of the match ". I was wondering -- " which match ?? how to see score ??" For I am really unaware of the cricket terminology of overs , sixes, fours, ball count etc etc ...I began to google ( The easy way solution for every question of ours ... that what we techie people do ) . And in the meantime ,he asked again - " Aree , btaa naa score .. itna time kyun le rhi hai ? " . His impatience prompted me to say what I didn't wanted to - " Yaar , score kaise check krte hain ? Mai google krr hi rahi hoon ". He laughed like never before and said crickinfo.com . He went on laughing the whole day and I am sure must have told the incident to few of his pals as well.
Another incident that will add cherry on the cake of embarrassing moments was at my friend cum mentor's party for his selection in IIT - Mumbai . He got selected long back but couldn't manage to come to Pune and celebrate the success . At the party, he was telling us everything that he lived in last 6-7 months of his college life and who all personalities he met . He met Harsh Bhogle and was telling every tale related to that meet . Everybody started opening their mouth wide as a gesture of astonishment mixed with happiness . Looking at the faces filled with Waoooooo factor I asked them .. " Who is this Harsha Bhogle ? " and then the face expressions that were received are hard to tell .. no doubt still there was astonishment but this time it was mixed with compunction - " Oh .. You don't know Harsha Bhogle ? " . Being the only gal in the friend circle , I had no girly auspice of sharing the same level of ignorance of Cricket . " He is the great cricket commentator "- said one of the friend (Deepak ) and I still remember the expressions of another friend Prashant ( A die hard cricket fan , who wanted to kill me at that very moment ) . These friends later got used to to my ignorance cum no basic knowledge of Cricket .
Well, the above incidents were not enough to make my moments embarrassing enough . The third is still in queue. I was in office and the "GULLY CRICKET " was in the air . The basic rules that we need to adhere is that there should be atleast 1 female member . I am the only girl in my team and so to bolster and play was the only option to make our team reach the ground . I pleaded them to take another girl , for it would be not fair enough if they lose the match due to my poor performance ( An absolute 0/infinity performer) .Still they took the great risk and send my name for the match. For rehearsals , when I went to play , one of the colleague asked me to stand and do fielding .To which I replied - " Yess .. that's true that I have no idea about what cricket is .... but I know this simple line of big brothers " Jaa fielding karr , phir batting milegi " and that chance for batting never ever comes .. But to my surprise , I was giving the opportunity to bat twice ( may be the gal's reservation ) . I mean , just to motivate me to play they made me bat from both the team's side . This scenario was entirely different from the one I just told to my colleague. I tried and hit few balls as well . Although , each time they were catched perfectly by the bowler but you see something is always better then nothing . Even on hitting the ball on bat brought smiles on the faces , maybe they had low expectations already or may be I played too well , the first time itself :D
