Cricket and Me

Cricket has never been Malaysian's cup of tea. I have always been amazed at the Indians' love towards cricket that it showed with the churning of movies like Lagaan, Chennai 28 and so forth. I still remember , my close Indian friend once told me that Cricket has disabled the Indians' ability to play other sports as they can never support another game as much as they do for cricket. And today i got the answer.

I would not call myself as a sports person but i have always interested in sports. I love participating in games as the adrenalin rush at the moment is indescribable. As i am a netball player my friends have always teased me that i 'fly' in the court and i just smile at them. One would never understand the feelings when you jump in the air and get hold of the ball and hit the ground with a great satisfaction and the crowd goes wild with that. That's what i love about sports.

This one week we have been asked to learn Cricket for no reasons. And i remember me along with my friends were making noises regarding the implementation as we could have gone back home for longer holiday had it been cancelled. When the national team Coach came, we asked him "Why Cricket?" and he said "you'll know by the end of this week". And now i know the reason..because it's fun.

I skipped the second practice session on the first day and went for the second day practice session. Since the coach is an Indian and his assistant is an Indian, and also since there are only 2 Indian girls in my cohort, he noticed that i was missing on the first day. So, as we gathered for the training, he was demonstrating some catches by picking some students. I was seated in the front row and praying to every God that i should not be picked. But as you would have guessed, he looked at me and said "You the weakly one. Where were you yesterday? Now go and try this catch".Usually, i'm not that bad with catching and throwing but since i was very nervous i missed the catch and tripped and fell. Imagine the person who was bowling was a young Indian guy who is also the assistant coach. I was so embarrassed at the thought that both the coaches would have thought that i was so hopeless in sports. So i was so determined to get my name cleared.

Finally, i got the chance yesterday. The coach fixed a point and told us that whoever manage to hit that point will get RM5. And when it was my turn i was just 1 inch far from the point which really impressed him. Then, he looked at me and then stretched out his arm for a handshake and i was like "See, i'm not that bad". And subsequently, as we started playing i fell in love with cricket. Though, we did not win the game today, i wish to play cricket again and i might watch Cricket games after this. And yeah even the assistant coach who laughed at me (imagine when i went to bowl, he asked me "ayyo, neengala" (OMG, You are going to bowl)was dumbfounded when i bowled the ball smoothly. Then he was like "Oh, not bad. You're a good bowler". So, Mr. Don't ever judge a book by it's cover k.