कथाकार

A team sport teaches you a lot. It doesn't matter, in which part of the world you play it, doesn't matter,  which background you come from, the sport is generous enough to offer everyone. The reason, two of the shrewdest & successful captains of the history of India's most popular sport, cricket, comes from contrast backgrounds. Sourav Ganguly has rich and classy background, comes from a metropolitan city, but the game equally celebrated MS Dhoni, who had a humble background and comes from a much smaller town. I come from even smaller town. I have observed the game very closely and when Iook back, I am overwhelmed by the fact that how enriched I am due to  this game. I have never formed a team or have been a founder member of any team. I rather chose to sneak in and be part of a team, which was formed before my arrival.  It has its own challenges but many advantages too. Since I was never a founder member, I never had the authority to play at my will in any of the tea...

Winters of 2002 was not different than any other year. The chilling winter has thou, started to recede. But, it was still harsh enough on hands on the cricket grounds. 13th February, a day just after my birthday, we had to play semifinals of a tournament in Hayaghat, against a known team (team supported by member of parliament, mentiond in previous episodes) from the same ground we practice. The opponents were superior and tough. We got to bat first. The conditions were chilling and ball was swinging a lot. Our gritty openers took a lot on their ribcage and we succeeded to put up a fighting total on the board. I scored very few runs, just reached a double digit. While fielding in slips, I injured my index finger badly. I asked for my replacement on field, to which my captain responded, "you are twice as better fielder with one hand than those on bench, so continue". As a favour, he released me from the slips and positioned me at point, thinking most of the balls will pass by ...