The Day Arrives

The “XV Industrial Cricket Tournament” of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur will see its conclusion tomorrow, Saturday, May 3, 2008. The team of which I’m a member –“Students’ team”– has reached the final of the tournament, rather expectantly. We will face the team that hails from the organizing committee of the tournament, “Staff A” — another expected finalist. On paper, we are the most cohesive unit (a fact accepted by the organizers themselves) and hope to win the final match, unless… (well, the less said is better!)

It was the first time any student team participated in this tournament (for obvious untold reasons). It is also the first time that the duration of the lunch (innings) break in a match lasts for six hours — first inning of the match is to start at 6:30 AM and the next at 3:30 PM. Extremely hot weather conditions, with temperatures ranging from 40 to 46 degree Celsius, force that kind of a match. Organizers are the culprits behind this conspiracy, as they succumbed to the pressure from various teams for the dates they wanted to play their league and semi-final matches.

Being the senior member of the team, I found myself in a rather uncomfortable situation — zeroing in on the final eleven players. Being forced to face such a situation, I have decided that I’ll stay away from any policy-making or opinion-sharing decision from any sport… rather any walk of life. I tried to be as rational as possible, but I (now) think that certain egos are just too big to walk over. I can now feel the dilemma the BCCI selectors face. Though I do not side with them, I, now, am aware of the tough situations that they encounter while making policy decisions.

With all these thoughts in my mind, I’m pretty certain that I’ll not perform as well as I expect from myself, so (in the hindsight) I do not want to play tomorrow’s match.