What an absorbing day of cricket...

What an absorbing day of cricket it was. At the end of the day, it was cricket that was the winner. The match is not over, but I was overwhelmed by today's play. I am talking about the final test between Australia and South Africa. The second day started with an anticipation if there will be a fairy tale in store for the day with this being Punter's last test. But soon we all realized that fairy tales, after all, are fairy tales.

After 12 wickets fell on day 1, and the no. 1 South Africa being bundled out for 225 (thanks to Faf, and his two partnerships with the lower order, else it would have been even lower), apart from Ponting's innings every cricket lover was interested to know how South Africa was going to prevent its no. 1 spot. South Africa already had a good start taking 2 of the Australian wickets on day 1. South African pace battery pressed on the accelerator and induced the Australian downfall. By the end of 17th over, Australia was 45/6. Then some gritty innings from Mathew Wade saved the face of Australia and they finished their innings at a meager 163, good 62 runs short of the Proteas. All this happened before Tea.

With just one session to go and 3 full days left, one would have expected South Africa to build on their lead gradually without losing any wicket. But South Africa had other intentions. Not that they did not want to build on the lead, but the way they approached the game was a surprise, at least to me. Alviro Petersen started from the word go and scored a quick 23 off just 20 balls before being caught and bold by Jhonson's athletic effort. I thought now that they have lost a wicket, they will slow down, but it was not the case. Hashim Amla came and went even harder than Alviro. He was scoring at a strike rate of 135+. On the other end Greame Smith was also scoring at a good rate, around 80+. Their partnership added 178 before Smith got out at 84 with Lyon taking a brilliant catch. He was very unfortunate not to get a 100.

Then came Kallis. He was not as belligerent as his team mates. It was understandable, as the day was about to end and he did not want SA to lose any further wicket and lose the advantage. His tentative approach certainly gave the Aussies a much needed chance to come back in the game but Lyon grassed a sitter. Both the wickets that Australia took in the 2nd innings were a result of brilliant catches, and Australia should have realized by then that it was not going to be a easy way out. Kallis rubbed salt on the wound by scoring three brilliant boundaries in one over and unfortunately the bowler at the receiving end was Starc on whose bowling Lyon dropped Kallis.

Last 20 minutes of the day also did not pass without a drama. The drama was surrounding Amla's century. When Smith got out, Amla was on 92 and at least 6 overs were remaining and Amla scored a 4 in the same over taking his tally to 96. After that Amla did not get enough strike. Smith got out in 33rd over. Kallis played the complete 34th over and took a single on the last ball. Then he played the complete 35th over. Amla faced the first ball of 36th over and as he had been doing throughout the innings, did not waste it and took a single. The remaining over was played by Kallis and again he took a single on the last ball. Again, the 37th over was played by Kallis with three glorious 4s. There could have been two full overs bowled in the time that was left for the day's play, but Clarke deliberately slowed it down with Amla getting a bit nervous. Amla had full 6 balls for him in the 38th over, facing the first ball. He played the first ball without a run. Then, in the second ball, he was nearly caught with the ball falling short of the fielder at mid-off, in an attempt to go over him. Kallis walked down to him to calm him down. Amla played another dot ball before scoring a single on the 4th ball, taking him to 98. Now the question was will Kallis take a single and give back the strike to Amla. Clarke also judged the situation well and brought all the fielders in to prevent the single, but Kallis managed to score a single. Now Amla was facing the final ball of the day with two runs for his well deserved century. It was short delivery and Amla swiveled and controlled the pull, only to pick up a single in the deep, which took him to 99. Now he will face the strike tomorrow. With this the day and the drama ended.

South Africa amassed 206 runs (in 32 overs) in the final session. Yes, we are talking about test cricket. South Africa has a lead of 292 with 8 wickets in hand. When both Smith and Amla were going ruthless, a 300+ lead was imminent but Smith's wicket slowed things a bit, but nevertheless, Proteas are in commanding position at the end of day 2. For sure, whatever South Africa will set Australia as target, Australia will have lot of time to chase. The only question is, how much?

Guys, this is the battle for number 1 spot. Australia has to win this game to regain their glory and South Africa just needs a draw. But the way, SA has approached the second innings, I doubt that they will settle with anything less than a victory. It is a pity that SA-AUS series are just three match series. Out of the last 9 series between them 8 have produced results, Australia winning 7 out of them. Only the last series was a drawn one and it was a 2 match series with a result of 1-1. The last time each of these team won the series against each other, it was on the opponent's soil and here SA has a very good chance of repeating the same. I do not want to jump to any conclusion, but one thing that I am sure of is that, for the next three days, you are definitely going to witness a very good battle. If you are a cricket lover, do not miss it.

My game number 50

Wishing you and your family a very happy new year!

Amidst the euphoria and anticipation of Sachin Tendulkar's 100 th century, I quietly completed my 50 th one day game as an umpire on January 8, 2012. It was so quiet that even I did not realize that when I was doing my game. It was only when I tried to work with some statistics for this post, that I realized it. At the same moment, I realized how much pressure Sachin must be feeling now. Going in any game without having any expectation apart from just enjoying the game in hand, makes you give the best for the game. Since I did not associate any milestone with my game, for me it was just another game and I enjoyed it thoroughly. More so, because I was doing a game after a gap of two months.

My journey as an umpire started in 2008 when I cleared the examination held by Belgium Cricket Federation. I started it just as pastime. But then it turned out to be a passion. I cleared the examination conducted by Tamil Nadu Cricket Association in 2009. In 2011, I passed the BCCI Level 1 examination. When I started, I never thought that I will come this far. Though it has been a slow progress, but I must admit that it has been a steady progress. I did 17 games in 2008 with BCF, 4 games in 2009 with TNCA, 14 games in 2010 with BCF and 14 games in 2011 with TNCA. With the circumstances that I had been in, I believe this is a good number. The season 2011-12 has not yet ended, so I will have few more games on grab.

My last game was on October 23, 2011. After that till December first week, almost all games were washed out because of excessive rains. In December, I was a bit busy with my work so I did not do any game. I even declined the posting on January 7, 2012. Had I known it would be my 50 th game, may be I would have accepted it :). So, finally after a gap of 2 months, I did a game.

It was a division 4 game, between Magnet Cricket Club and Madras United Club. It was held at CLRI grounds. My colleague for the day was K. Manoharan. He is a Division 2 player and also my batch mate as an umpire. We passed our TNCA and BCCI exams in the same year i.e. 2009 and 2011 respectively. It was nice to see him as my colleague. We were doing a game together for the first time. It was a bright sunny day and no sign of any dark cloud, so I was confident that the game was on.

Magnet CC won the toss and elected to field first. The bowling started from my end and I had the chance of calling 'Play'. On the third ball itself, a chance went begging. The opening batsman nicked the ball to the first slip and the slip fielder was late to react and dropped the catch. Then the batsman started scoring freely and there was no chance till the 16 th over. I was at the square leg and the very first ball, the batsman stretched forward to reach for the ball and in the process, dragged his back foot outside the crease and missed the ball. The keeper collected the ball and whipped the bails off in a flash and appealed to me. It was a close call but I had no hesitation in giving him out and my index finger came back into action :).

Madras United Club then lost another wicket in the same over and then they kept loosing wickets on regular intervals, but at the same time they were scoring freely. In spite of losing wickets on regular basis, their inning spanned till the 50 th over, but they could not completely play the 50 overs. They were all out for 262 in 49.3 overs. The innings ended 5 minutes before the scheduled time for lunch (1300 hours). It was a very competitive score. I thought that either the game was going down the wire or it would be a one sided game. But it was neither of the two.

Nevertheless, Magnet CC did not have the best of the start that they would have desired for. They lost their opener in the very first over. The batsman who came as one down was in a murderous mood. He was swinging at anything and everything, but unfortunately for him, he did not connect most of the time. In the 6 th over, when I was at bowler's end, this batsman missed the ball in one such swing and the ball hit the pad. As expected there was a huge appeal and without any hesitation, I gave him out. But the surprising part was that the batsman started walking as soon as it hit his pad. It was for the first time I saw someone walking for a LBW :). Here again, Magnet CC started losing wickets on regular interval. Though their scoring rate was better than their opponent throughout their inning, but loss of wickets were not helping their cause. Finally, their innings folded in the 35 th over at a score of 147. The match ended at 1603, more than an hour before the scheduled finish of the game (1715 hours).

It would be a cliche, but as I had mentioned in my previous posts, every game offers a new experience. In this case it was for the first time that I saw that both teams were very disciplined in their bowling efforts. Both teams were always ahead in their over rates (15 overs/hour), that too without any interference from us (umpires). It was very sunny day and thus we had to allow for drinks in between the game in addition to the regular drinks break. The regular drinks break also lasted its full 5 minutes each time. But it did not impact the over rate in any way. It was a very nice feeling. I wish every team does the same.

The game was played in good spirit and that is what an umpire desire for. So my game number 50 went on smooth. The year has begun well and I hope to do as many games as possible this year.

Another short game

I have two apologies to make, one for coming up with this write up one week late, the second one for not coming up with an interesting title.

Finally I had a game this season outside St. Bede's 'A' ground that completed. This was in A.M. Jain college 'A' ground on October 9, 2011. I had umpired in this ground once before when I just started umpiring with TNCA. It was a special game. If I remember correctly, I gave 4 or 5 LBW decisions in that game.

I reached the ground around 8:40 AM. The ground was not in a good shape. The ground was uneven. Moreover, the ground had lot of patches of grass and these were very long. Around the boundary, there was more grass and these were really long. In fact they were so long that we were not even able to see the cone that was place to mark the boundary. We had to ask the groundsman to elevate those cones, so that we could clearly identify the boundary.

The game was between TVS MSC and Prem CC. My colleague for the day was C. Jayachandran. I was umpiring with him for the first time. As other colleagues of mine in the past, even he has been umpiring for a long time. The sun was shining hard already at 9:00 AM. So, I was wondering how the day is going to be in terms of heat. Anyway, I was here and there was no looking back. I was in fact happy to have a game and that too outside St. Bede's 'A' ground :).

As the title of the post suggests, this was a short game, not as short as my last game but still short. The game lasted till half an hour after lunch. TVS MSC won the toss and elected to field. It was very slow and steady start from them. They were 27/1 in 12 overs. Their rate of scoring did not improve at all but wicket started falling in regular intervals. Soon they were all out for 90 in the 37th over, one hour before the scheduled lunch time (1:00 PM).

The total to get was less than what was set in the last game, still my assessment was that Prem CC will not go for the kill and bat the session before the lunch and consolidate. My anticipation was correct and they batted the 49 minutes left and score 42 for the loss of a wicket after 13 overs. Though they lost their second wicket immediately after the lunch, but that did not deter them. The batsmen showed some urgency in finishing the game and they reached the target in 23rd over and the game ended at 2:20 PM.

From umpiring perspective this game was not very challenging. There were only couple of appeals but they were not very difficult ones. With the scoring rate in the first innings being low, it was already uninteresting and as expected, in second innings there was no surprise, as the target was chased very easily. But as an umpire we do have to go through these kind of situations without any biases.

Having said that the game had its own interesting phases. Reaching milestones is everyone's ambition in a game. Batting milestones is very difficult in a low scoring games but at the same time bowling milestones are sometimes easy, rather bowling milestones result in low targets. Even here in this game, Prabhu from Prem CC got 5 wickets to bowl out TVS MSC, but there was phase where it was not sure if he would reach that milestone. By the end of 23rd over, he had taken 4 wickets and the team had lost 6 wickets. So out of the remaining 4 wickets he had to take only 1 wicket. Another wicket fell in 26th over but it was not Prabhu who took it. So that left him with only 3 more chances. After bowling 27th over Prabhu had to retire because he was not feeling well. He was out for 14 minutes. He had to spend 14 minutes before he could bowl again. In 32nd over the 8th wicket fell, later in 34th over the 9th wicket fell. That left Prabhu with only one chance. Luckily Prabhu became just eligible for bowling and he came to bowl the 37th over. He finally took the final wicket, that also took his tally to 5 wickets. I think this would have been a good lesson for Prabhu. He could have missed his milestone. Not that it is the most important thing in a match, but in this match he had the opportunity and he should have grabbed it in the beginning and not left it till the end.

There was another interesting phase in this low scoring game. It came too late in the game but it was nerve wrecking (it is definitely exaggeration) for John who was the batsman at crease towards the end of the game. As I said, reaching a batting milestone in low scoring game is very difficult, even for Sehwags and Gilchrists. John was batting at 44 and the team needed 10 runs to win. On the last ball of 21st John was on strike and he played a lofted shot over mid wicket. The ball pitched into the grass around the boundary and it was not very clear if it pitched inside the boundary or outside. Since I was standing at square leg, I was in a better position to judge if it was inside the boundary or not. In my opinion, it had pitched inside and thus I signalled it as 4 runs to my colleague and he signalled it to the scorer.

Now John reached 48 and the team needed 6 runs. 50 for him was still possible. The bowler was bowling from my end. John was at the non strike. The other batsman blocked 2 bowls and then he said aloud that he was going to block the full over. He did the same and 22nd over ended with the team still needing 6 runs to win and John needing 2.

23rd over began with John on strike. Either John was desperate or he wanted to reach 50 with a big hit. It was a new bowler. John decided to go after him. He swung the bat and missed it completely. The next ball as well he swung the bat and missed it completely. Now common sense prevailed and he decided that he will take a single. 3 ball left in the over and the team needed 5 runs and John needed 1 for his 50. The other batsman on strike knew that he had to give back John strike. 4th ball, there was no run taken. 5th ball the bowler strayed towards the leg and batsman somehow got a bat to that and the bowl raced to the fine leg boundary and now both the batsmen on crease were in distress. The scores were tied and the team needed only 1 run and John was stranded at non striker end. The striker was cursing himself. Last ball of the 23rd over, the bowler again strayed, I guess some other time, the batsman would not have chased it, but to endure that it was not a wide, the batsman touched it hoping that it would not cause any issue. But the drama was not over. Even this time the ball went towards the fine leg boundary. There was no fielder, but the ball was travelling with lesser speed compared to the previous delivery. Now everyone on the field knew the situation. Every one was watching the ball to see if it crosses the boundary or not. No price for guessing, the batsmen did not run. It was worth watching the striker's face. At this point of time, the grass at the boundary came as an rescue for both the batsmen on the crease. The ball stopped just before the boundary and the over number 23rd ended with some heart beats.

It was the 24th over, the bowler was bowling from my end. It was a bowling change and John was on strike. 1 needed for his 50 and 1 needed for his team to win. The bowler was bowling for the first time in the game so he was rusty. He bowled the ball and the ball was wide of the off stump and John chased it and missed it. It was too close to be called a wide. The batsman watched me after missing the delivery, the bowler turned back to see what my decision was. On any other similar moment, I would have called this a wide. But this situation was exceptional. I chose not be the hero of the moment and thus did not call it a wide. The agony on the face of John turned into relief. The status quo was maintained. John was now desperate. The second ball was bowled and John played he shot too early and the ball took the top edge of the bat and skied high. The ball went to mid off where there was a fielder, who comfortably took his position to get the catch. John was running towards my end to complete the run watching the fielder, the non striker ran towards the wicket keeper end watching the ball travel to the fielder. The fielder somehow messed it up and dropped a dolly and John reach his well deserved 50 but not before some exciting moments.

Though the game was short, but the last phase of the game gave it some life. My next game is on Oct 16. I am back to St Bede again, but this time it is 'B' ground. I will let you know what happened there. Till then happy waiting.

Shortest game

After so many rain affected schedule this season, I was able to umpire a game today. This is the third game (out of 7 postings) this season that I was able to umpire. This was also the third game in the same ground, St Bede's 'A'. So, I guess I can say that if I am posted in this ground, I can expect for sure that the game will be completed :).

Apart from the fact that I was able to umpire full game on this ground (without getting affected by rain), there is one more thing that I would like to mention about the games that I umpired here. All the three games finished before the scheduled time of close (5:15 PM). Today's game was the shortest of them and if my memory is good then, I think this is the shortest one day game (50 overs) that I have ever umpired. When I say shortest, it is in terms of the time duration. There is one game that comes to mind that finished just after the lunch, but this one wound up even before lunch, 12:46 PM to be precise (Scheduled lunch time 1:00 PM).

When I arrived in Chennai on Saturday morning, I heard that it had rained heavily on Thursday. I saw little evidence of anything like that. I am not saying that it was not true, but what I mean is the water had dried. So I knew that if does not rain on Saturday, I will have a game for sure on Sunday. I know you must be bored of reading similar statements in my previous posts. Even I am bored of writing this time and again. As I hoped, it did not rain on Saturday and I went to the ground today hoping to have a full game.

Every game presents a new situation and this one was no different. It was almost 9:15 AM and there was no sign of my colleague. The match starts at 9:30 AM and the toss had to be done before 9:15 AM. Not that I could not have done the toss alone, but at toss, we need to communicate certain things to the captains and those things needs to be first agreed between us. So I was in a situation where I had to go for a toss without speaking to my colleague. I went for the toss and clarified certain things with respect to the boundaries. My colleague (T. Ranga Mannar) arrived at 9:25 AM. He was stuck because of some cycle race being organized in the neighborhood on occasion of Gandhi Jayanthi today.

Both of us walked into the ground and I took this opportunity to introduce myself and also told him about what I communicated to the captains. He was of a different opinion about what I had spoken to the captains on the boundaries, but then the communication had already been made and he kindly agreed to stick by whatever I had said. In spite of my colleague arriving late, the game started as scheduled at 9:30 AM.

Match Summary is as follows:

It was game between Youth Centre CC and Nelson SC, division 5 game. YCCC won the toss and elected to bat. They scored 101/10 in 29.5 overs. Nelson CC chased the score in just 11.3 overs scoring 107 at the loss of 3 wickets. YCCC innings ended at 11:45 AM and the game concluded at 12:46 PM.

As I said, every match has its own situations and mostly it is different from anything that we would have seen in the past. Thus every match has a learnings for us to take. Even though today's match was the shortest, it had its own share of incidents. In the 6th over, the bowler was bowling from my end. The batsman hit a straight shot and the bowler fielded comfortably. Though the batsman was comfortably in, the bowler threw the ball on the stumps at the wicket-keeper end. The ball hit the batsman on his knees. The bowler apologised, but it was a needless throw. Now this is not something unusual. We have seen such aggression many a time on TV. One of the team member from the batting side, outside the ground, shouted at the bowler for his act. This invoked reactions from the fielders in the ground. I had to pitch in on time and later even my colleague intervened, to ask the fielders to concentrate on the game and not get engaged in things outside the field of play.

After some time when the batsmen were taking a single, in an attempt to runout the batsman, the fielder threw the ball at the wicket-keeper's end. The ball hit the batsman while he was completing his run. I think no marks for guessing that it was a fuel added to the exiting fire. Before any reaction from the batsman, I cautioned the fielder to be careful. After the end of the over, the fielder went and apologised to the batsman and batsman accepted it gracefully. In the same innings, there was another instance when the same fielder, again in an attempt to runout the batsman, threw the ball to the wicket-keeper. The ball was again nowhere close to the wicket and this time, to my relief, it closely missed the batsman. Every fielder on the field was furious. The closing filder shouted at this guy and warned him of a potential confrontation, this could trigger. I spoke to the captain immediately to ensure that the fielder was more careful when throwing the ball at wicktes. The capatin apologised and assured that it would not happen again.

In the 12th over, there was a very confident appeal for LBW from the bowler and the closing fielders. I took 4 or 5 seconds extra to answer the appeal. I replayed the event in my mind and saw that the ball had clearly hit the pad and had it not hit the pad, it would have hit the stumps. In replaying the event, I also realized that I had heard the faint nick. Soon after that, instead of saying 'Not Out', I said it was a bat. Then later I realized my mistake and said, 'Not Out'. I had to answer the appeal first, and then if necessary, explan. One of the fielder, commented 'Sir, please give the decision soon'. I said, I had to give the right decision even though with a delay. The bowler was not convinced, but the closing fielders confirmed that indeed there was a bat. That additional seconds helped me to give the correct decision. I loved it. I was more confident after that decision.

Later in the second innings, in the 7th over, there was a huge appeal when I was at the bowler's end. First it was the bowler who appealed vociferously, then the wicket-keeper who caught the ball, came appealing and running on the pitch till the middle of the pitch. I was a bit confused now. I was not sure what the appeal was for. I thought that it was for LBW initially, but later the way the keeper charged towards me, I was not sure if they were appealing for a catch. But in any case, it was "Not Out". In my opinion, the ball was no way close to the bat and hence there was no possibility of the catch. As far as LBW was concerned, the impact was outside the off stump and the batsman was offering a shot, so he could not be ruled out. While walking back towards the run-up, the bowler asked me if it was the height that saved the batsman. Now I was convinced about what the appeal was for. I told him the reason, though it is not required for me to explain. The bowler seemed convinced. Once again, it was a correct decision from me. When the batsman came to the non-striker end, he said, it was a good decision as his bat was no way near the ball. The batsman was of the opinion that appeal was for catch. So my decision that it was not out for catch was also correct. Though it is not that we can go by his word, but I thought that his statement was genuine. I thanked him.

That is about the key moments for me in this game. The most ironic fact about the game was that it finished even before the lunch. In my previous game, when I called off the game, I was there at ground till 12:30 PM and today the game itself lasted only till 12:46 PM.

My next game would be on October 9, 2011. At this point of time, I do not know the details of the game. As usual, I will keep you updated after the game.

Washout saga continues

When I arrived this Friday in Chennai, in the back of my mind, I had the two washouts that I had. When I saw pools of water on the road and streets, it made me worry a bit. With two games lined up in the next two days, I was very sure that I would definitely have one game to umpire. Never I imagined that I will have two more washouts and that too on consecutive days.

The game was supposed to take place in CLRI grounds. As per the original plan, I was supposed to umpire at CPT-IP grounds, but since the ground was not available today, I was posted in CLRI. I did not think much about the ground, I was more interested in getting a game. But I knew the ground, so I could anticipate what to expect. This ground has already served as two first in my TNCA league career. This was the ground where I had my first game with TNCA as an umpire. This was also the ground where I had my first washout :). So I knew very well that if it rains then it will be difficult to conduct the game.

Yesterday, though I had to call off my game because it was cloudy and the situation would not have improved, but it did not rain the whole day. Even when I went to sleep around mid night yesterday, it did not rain. I cannot express my happiness that I felt when I went to sleep, here in writing. I went to sleep hoping that it would not rain.

When I woke up today, I did not see any signs of rain. But when I saw outside my house, it was all wet and I knew that it had rained sometime in the night but was not sure how much and for how long. So before going for my bath, I went to get the news paper for the day. I purchased the news paper and saw that the plan for the day was intact. So I came back and got ready for the game. But I knew for sure that it will definitely be a delayed start.

May be because I had this delayed start at the back of my mind, somehow I started a bit late from my house for the ground. This was definitely wrong my part. Irrespective of the situation, I had to be in the ground at least 45 minutes before the start of the game, which meant that I had to be there at 8:45 AM but I reached the ground only at 9:05 AM. I cursed myself for being late. When I reached the ground, I saw pools of water and my heart sulked. But the positive part was that the sun was shining.

I went and met my colleague of the day, C.P. Sridhar. He has played lot of professional cricket. He has been umpiring from 1989. He has wealth of experience as both player and an umpire. I checked with him if there was a possibility of a game. He said, we will take a call after our first inspection at 09:30 AM.

We did our first inspection at 09:30 AM. The pitched looked fine. With the way he sun was shining, we never had any doubt about pitch posing any problem, as it did the other day for me in CPT-IP ground. We saw that the bowler's run up at one end had a big pool of water. In the same end towards the boundary, there was a sizable area covered with water. This part of the ground did not have any grass. So we knew that if sun was out, then this part would definitely dry. We observed that near this part there was a big patch that was covered with grass and filled with water. The grass would not allow the water to be soaked. So we knew for sure that there was no way the play would start in another hour. While returning back to the pavilion, we observed on one of sides of the pitch around the 30 yard circle, there was again a big part of the ground that had grass and was filled with water. Anyone looking at these parts from a distance would never realize that these pockets of ground were water logged. Players were eagerly waiting for our verdict. They expected a cancellation. To their disappointment, we told them that we will take that call at 11:30 AM, the time for our next inspection.

We had only one person who was responsible for the maintenance of the ground. If we had pushed the water outside and spread it on nearby areas, we had a fair chance that this place would get dry. But then with just one person for maintaining the ground, it was too much for us to ask. So we did not have the man power to get the ground ready. We had to rely solely on the natural way (i.e. getting dry from sun shine). Now, these are very tricky decisions. We knew deep in the heart, even if the sun shines brightly, the water in the pockets where we had grass was not going to get dry. But we cannot decide upfront as sun was still shining. If it was cloudy, we could have taken a call to cancel the game around 10:30 AM itself, as we did in case of my first washout, in the same ground. But the sun made all the difference. Not that I was unhappy about the situation. I wanted to have a game and was ready to explore every possibility of having a game. In this case, that is why we decided that we will give sun some time to influence the ground situation and thus decided for an inspection after 2 hours.

Now we had to kill the time somehow. I suggested for a coffee break, to which my colleague readily agreed. We went to Hot Chips in front of the ground on the other side of the road. Since I did not have any thing in the breakfast, I decided to use this opportunity. I ate pongal and had a cup of hot coffee. My colleague had a cup of Tea. He had plenty to speak. One good thing about these unscheduled breaks are, we get to know about the colleague or some players a lot. Most of the times, when these people have been in the system for a long time, they will have several interesting anecdotes and they share them happily as well. So I heard lot of stories.

We came back to the ground in an hour or so. We still had one more hour before our next inspection. Again the chit chat and stories continued. In the meantime, quiet a few players approached us to check what were we up to. Will we call off the game or wait till 01:45 PM? So, several questions, several remarks. Several suggestions, but we have to be unbiased, unperturbed by the remarks that we receive, not getting influenced, we have take our decisions based on what we see and what we feel. The sun was getting brighter every minute. So that was making it more difficult for to decide. It meant that the waiting period will increase.

We went for our next inspection at 11:30 AM. The water had dried a bit on places where there was no grass. But places where we had grass, we could not see enough improvement. Also at bowler's run up area, we still had water but lesser than that we saw at 09:30 AM. We decided that we will have one more inspection at 12:30 PM. Players were not happy. But as I said, we had to go by our judgement. Since Sun was out, we had to see every possibilty, before calling the game off. We went for our next inspection at 12:30 PM. There was no significant improvement. We had to decide now finally. If we had to start the game today, then it has to be done latest by 1:45 PM and for that we have to take a call now. Because we need to give the groundsman also some time to prepare the pitch, do the markings, etc. So we decided based on the current conditions that it will not improve by 1:45 PM which is the cut off time for the game to start. So we finally called off the game.

You must be thinking, all this story just to say that the game was called off. What else to do? You cannot blog with just one or two lines, isn't it? :)

I do not have any game next week. I have office work the next weekend, so I cannot go to Chennai. May be I will do a game in the first weekend of October (of course if rain permits :)). Till then happy waiting :). In the meantime I will try to update the post on my second game.

YAWO

YAWO - Yet Another Washout :(

It was another washout today. Out of the 5 games I was posted this season, this is the third game that has been washed out by rain. After my return from Belgium, I have always been saying that only my cricket life is on track. Now, even that seems to be going off the track :). I know this is too early for me to say this. But it is really frustrating.

This time I had planned two games this weekend. Thus I arrived in Chennai on Friday (yesterday) itself. When I reached Chennai, I saw pools of water on streets and road. I was very worried to see that. I just hoped that it does not rain. Yesterday, the whole day it did not rain. I was relieved that I will have a match this weekend. The whole day it did not rain.

Finally my hope was shattered. At 9:30 PM, it began to rain. I was returning from my friend's place and caught in the middle of my journey. Luckily, there was a flyover on my way home, so I had a shelter to prevent myself from getting wet. I was lucky in this respect but my luck for the game the next day was definitely not going my way. I stayed under the flyover for more than an hour and throughout this period, it was raining cats and dogs. I saw the water on road flowing into the drainage on the side of the road. Along with it, I saw my game on Saturday as well going down the drain. The rain stopped for a while but it drizzled for some time during my journey and I made the best of this opportunity and reached home without getting much wet. But as soon as I reached home, it started to rain again. With every moment the possibility of having a game the next day was getting dark. Rain was not in my control, so I decided to do something that was in my control. Thus I went to sleep hoping that the rain would stop and I would have a game to umpire.

The next day i.e. today when I woke up, it was not raining. That itself was a relief. But I was not sure if the ground would be ready. Again whatever had to happen had already happened. I got ready but before starting, I thought it was a good idea to check if there would be a game. I called the TNCA person who is responsible for posting (Mr Ramji). Ramji sir was also not sure, he asked me to check in the news paper. I checked in the news paper and the news paper did not mention anything about the cancellation. So it meant that I had to go to the ground. But having seen the rain the last night, I was not very hopeful for a game to happen.

Today's game was supposed to be played between Nelson CC and St. Mary's CC, a division 5 game. The venue for the game was CPT-IP matting ground. I had never been there, so I was not familiar with the ground. So I could not anticipate the condition beforehand. As I had no other choice, I started for the game.

With some difficulty in finding the ground, I reached the ground at 09:00 AM. The outfield was fairly even and looked dry. But there were pockets of outfield where there was no water but it was very slippery and could definitely be considered dangerous. Then I went near the pitch, the pitch at the ends was very wet. The run up was also wet and soft. So it was very clear that the match could not start at scheduled time of 09:30 AM. Then I went and met my colleague for the day, P. Raju, who had already come. I had not umpired with him but I was with him during the BCCI Level 1 course (I will tell you more about this in one of my post in future). He has been playing profession cricket for a long time. He stopped playing only last year. He had started umpiring in 1997 itself. Though he was of the same age as mine, his exposure to cricket was much more than what I had. Then we went together for our first inspection. We decided that we will not start the game at the scheduled time. We informed the captains about this and told them that our next inspection would be at 10:00 AM.

To pass our time, we went to a tea shop near by. We had a cup of tea. Then returned back to the ground around 09:45 AM. It was still cloudy with very little sign of sun shine. So there was no scope for the conditions to improve. We went for another inspection at 10:00 AM. We concluded that the situation did not improve. It was still wet at bowler's run up and the pitch was still wet. We decided that we will do the next inspection at 11:00 AM. But we were skeptical about any improvement in the conditions.

Around 10:30, the sun started shining, but it was not with any great intensity. Still, it gave some hope that the we will have a game. So we patiently waited till 11:00 AM. We had decided among ourself that we will take a stock of the situation and if we found that the conditions have not improved, then we will call the game off and not wait till 1:45 PM which was the official time to call the game off. We went to the pitch and found that the situation was no different from what we saw at 10:00 AM. We were pretty convinced that even if the sun came out, the pitch was not going to get dry enough for a game to happen. The bowler's run up was still damp. So with a heavy heart, I had to call another game off. So we recorded our observations on the score sheet and called the game off.

Rain had again played a spoil sport. My plan of umpiring two games this weekend did not happen. While leaving the ground, I just hoped that my other game this weekend did get affected by rain.

To know what happened with my next game, keep reading...

Another game, at last

Out of the three games that I agreed, two were washed out by rain. This weekend (Sep 4), I had a game and at last, I was able to umpire. It was bright sunny day to begin with and there was no change in that state throughout the day. So finally after two washouts, I had a complete game.

This was game between Egmore RC and Perambur Club, a division 3 game. My colleague for the game was K. Kuberan. He is from year 2000 batch. He is also a cricket coach. He was coaching a division 1 team for 4 years. Both of us had reached the ground around 8:40 am. That gave us few time to catch up with each other.

It was the same ground where I did my firt game of the season. The ground was familiar. This time while choosing my end I chose the end opposite to the end that I chose last time. Again there is a lot of science as well involved in selecting ends, but I think if I start discussing that, it will be a complete post in itself. So I skip that for now.

At 9:01 AM, I went for the toss with the captains. This was the earlies time that I went for toss in any game. There is one more thing that I have to tell. It is rarely in my past games that both the umpires went together for toss in my games. Whenever only one umpire went, it had always been me who went for the toss. The law has changed in this regard now. Earlier it was not mandatory for the umpires to attend the toss. But now it is mandatory for one umpire to be present. Now do not ask me, why on TV, we do not see the umpires coming for toss. That is because, the tournament generally follows playing conditions, where match refree accompanies the captains for the toss.

Egmore RC won the toss and elected to bat first. Since the toss was done pretty early, everyone had plenty of time before the scheduled start. The game started on time. The bowling bagn from my colleague's end. The first ball was a wide. The very next ball, the batsman missed the ball, it hit his pad and there was a huge appeal and he was given out. So Egmore were 1/1 in 1 ball, not start that they would have hoped for. The first two overs were full of extras, as far as I remember only one run was scored of bat. To add to these extras, the bails were falling because of the wind at my colleague's end. Extras and this delay mean that it took 15 minutes to complete the 2 overs.

With the contributions from the bowler and with some good stroke making, the Egmore reached 45 at the end of 5 overs. This was enough a motivation for the captain of Perambur to make a bowling change. And the change brought immediate result. The very first ball, not the best ball, wide outside the off, pulled by the batsman, went high in the air to fine leg and the fielder made no mistake resulting in another wicket.

Will update the details of the game in few days...Happy waiting!

Two washouts in a row

As I said in my previous post, I started my season late. So when I received the letter of posting for the month of August, I was very happy. There were four games for which I had been posted. But I had to regret one of the game as there were two games on the same weekend. But I still had three games for the month.

On August 21, it was game between BSNL Chennai Telephones v Dorairaj. It was a Division 4 game. It was to be played in CLRI grounds. It was the same ground where I did my first game for TNCA. It was way back in July 2009. It rained heavily on August 20 night. In the morning when I woke up, my mom asked me if there will be any game that day. I told her that irrespective of whether the game happens or not, I will have to go to the ground, as umpires are the final decision makers. Until unless the assessment of the ground is made on that day, we could not decide if the game would be played or not. So even before I went to the ground, it was doubtful if we will have a game or not.

I reached the ground around 08:40 AM. The mat was not on the pitch. I could see lot of puddles of water on the ground. One of the team member from BSNL approached me and asked if there would be any game today. I gave him the politically correct answer, which was, "I have to wait till my colleague arrives and then we will make an assessment". Everyone was very sure that there was no scope for game but then there were certain procedures that had to be adopted. Such decisions could not be made by one umpire. It is always a joint decision. I saw that the scorer had arrived. He was so sure that the game would not happen that he brought only the score sheet. In fact everyone there were hoping that the game would not happen. It was a festival day (Krishna Jayanti). People wanted to retire to their home and celebrate the festival.

While I was waiting for my colleague to arrive, the scorer and myself were discussing the dismal performance of Indian team in the tour of England. My colleague Mr. Iyyapan arrived at around 09:00 AM. He was the same guy with whom I umpired in my first game, on the same ground. He went straight to the pitch. I rushed to accompany him. We saw that the pitch was wet. On one of the ends, the bowlers run up had puddle of water. There were lot of pockets of puddle on the boundary. So first inspection was done and the ground condition was definitely not suitable for us to start the game at 09:30 AM. Since it was not raining, we had to go by the assumption that the conditions could still improve and see the possibility of having a game. As per the rules, we can call off a game only when we are sure that there is no possibility of having a game for at least 3.5 hours duration. This means that if we see that the conditions are improving, then we had to wait till 1:45 PM to call the game off.

As the players saw us walking towards the boundary, they were eager to know what was our assessment. They were very sure that there will not be any game. But to their disappointment, we said that we will take that call only after our next inspection which was due at 10:30 AM. Deep in my heart I knew that there is no game possible, as the Sun was still not shining and there was no scope for the conditions to improve. But at the same time, deep in my heart, I wanted the game to happen. I had not travelled from Bangalore to Chennai to call off the game I was supposed to umpire. But the possibility were as dark as the clouds that I could see in the sky. Rather the possibilities were dark because the clouds in the sky were dark. I know my statements were not impressive :).

So the PCT (Playing control team) sat together. You must be wondering what is that. Apart from the two teams who are competing we have a third team on the ground, that is called PCT which comprises of umpires, scorers and referee, basically people who are responsible for conducting the game. Here the PCT was only two umpires and the scorer. So we had to spend more than an hour before the next inspection. I thought that it was good time to just browse through the playing conditions once again. In the meantime, I was also engaged in the discussion that were on different topics ranging from Anna Hazare's anti-corruption crusade to India's dismal performance in England. The other two were veterans with respect to their participation in TNCA leagues, so they were recalling certain incidents from their past. It was interesting to listen.

Meanwhile, the time passed and it was 10:30 AM, our next milestone for inspection. After this inspection, without throwing any surprise, we decided to call off the game. The assessment that we had to make here was, whether there was any improvement in the conditions after our previous inspection. Also we had to asses if there will be any sufficient improvement in the conditions during the course of the day to start the game at least by 1:45 PM. The answers to both the questions were "No". Let me take this opportunity to explain you why we decided to call off the game. We as an umpires can decide to call of the game when we find that the condition of the ground, weather or light are dangerous or unreasonable for the play to take place. We call it dangerous if the conditions pose risk to safety of any player or umpire. We call it unreasonable if although posing no risk to safety, it will not be sensible to play. Here obviously, with wet ground and pitch, it was definitely not sensible to play. Moreover, while running on this ground, there is definitely possibility of players or umpires slipping and getting injured. So we (umpires) made our observations in the score sheet and called the game off. So my second game of the season had to be called off. The irony was that I was also one of the decision makers call it off :(.

My next game was on August 28, i.e. today. It was supposed to be played between Vepery CC and Gandhi CC. It was a division 5 game to be played in PSHS grounds. Last Wednesday, I got a call from TNCA that the venue was changed to St. Patrcik's school. I assumed that it would be because of the ground condition, it had been raining all the week and PSHS was not the best ground in terms of its ability to drain the water. I arrived yesterday morning from Bangalore. Unfortunately, I had to work from home and I was not very happy about that as lot of my planned work for yesterday were affected by this. Even in terms of work, it was not significant, but I could not leave my home, as it could be that I will be required to login at any time. In a way it was good that I had time to relax, which was a rarity in the past few weeks. Ok, coming back to this game. It had rained heavily the previous night i.e. Friday and I saw lots of water in the streets. When I was walking towards my home I already knew somehow what was in store for me with respect to the game. But I thought that if it did not rain the whole day on Saturday, i.e. yesterday, there could be a game possible. So I waited till the evening, there was no rain. So I was hopeful that I will have a game. I knew that the ground was in Adayar but I did not know how to reach this ground, so I thought that I will give a call to TNCA office for the directions. This was surprisingly one of the very few good decision (of course off field) that I made in the recent times :). I was informed that all the games this weekend were cancelled because of the inclement weather. Though I was happy about my decision to call, but I was disappointed that there was no game for me even this weekend.

After two games in a row being washed out, my tally for the season after two months still remain 1. In September I will not be able to umpire on two weekends, so by end of September as well, my tally is not going to see any marked improvement. If I had been living in Chennai, I would not have been this disappointed. The reason being that if I was in Chennai, I could easily do games on both Saturday and Sunday. But since I travel to Chennai from Bangalore, umpiring on Saturday is ruled out. That leaves me only with Sunday and that too if is washed out like this, then my effort of travelling goes waste. Anyway, somethings are not in my control and I do not need to worry much about it. Lot of time is left in the season and because of these washouts, anyway these games will be replayed in future. So I will have enough games :).

So dear friends, that is the story till today. I know I have to still complete my previous post. I think I will complete it in sometime next week. So keep reading.

Happy Ramzan and Happy Ganesh Chaturthi!

Season began for me, finally

The season began for me, finally on August 14. But the cricket season in Tamil Nadu had begun almost a month back. It was my first game of this season. I was anxious. It is the case for me in every game. But this was different. This season is very important for me. I really want to do well. This game had to give me that confidence. I always believe that fear of failure is a hindrance to success. Unfortunately these days I fear for failure. Thus a good start to the season was what I wanted.

This was a game between Comrades CC and Puraslavakkam CC. It was a Division 4 game. It was in St. Bede's 'A' ground. So far I had umpired only in St. Bede's 'B' ground. No big difference between the two. I mentioned here just for the sake of mentioning it :). My colleague for the day was S.N. Sukumar, a veteran in the field of umpiring.

The laws of cricket were changed slightly with effect from October 1, 2010. This being the IVth edition of 2000 code, will now apply in this season in TNCA leagues as well. One change was with respect to the toss, where the captain winning the toss has to convey his decision immediately. The toss happened at 9:20 AM. Ideally the toss should have happened between 9:00 AM and 9:15 AM for the game starting at 9:30 AM, but here we had to delay the toss. For the toss to happen we must have the team's nomination, which was delayed. This is quiet common in our league. Hence we had to go for the toss with a delay. The Comrades team won the toss and elected to field. The captain was a proud man. It seems this team has close to 100% record when it comes to winning the toss. The opponent captain was relieved that the fete of the game was not to be decided by the spin of the coin.

The game started at 09:30 AM (as scheduled). The game started from my partner's end. So I was deprived of calling 'Play' to start the match. Nothing significant about it, only that I like to do that. In the very first over, there was some action. The ball pitched and rose, hit the glove of the batsman and lobbed to the second slip, the fielder who was also the captain, dived full stretch and reached the ball but could not hold on to it. I like these kind of attempts. In spite of this brave effort, no wicket fell.

The next over was from my end. The bowler was a bit rusty to begin with and I felt that even I was a bit rusty. The ball went wide of the batsman, it was high, well above the waist height. My both hands rose to call wide, but the batsman touched the ball. Thankfully I did not call. Then I realized that it was above waist height as well, which meant that it qualified to be an unfair delivery. Immediately, I dropped one of my hand, and called it a No Ball. Then I cautioned the bowler. It was his first ball of the match and he had to be cautioned.

After the drama in the first two overs, the openers steadied the innings and reached 39 in 10 overs. In the 10th over, there was a loud appeal from the bowler and the fielders for LBW. In my opinion, the impact was at the leg and was going down the leg. The height was also a factor. So I said 'Not Out'. The bowler was not happy. So my first decision for the day and the season was made. In the 11th over, I was at square leg. The batsman stretched for the ball and missed the ball completely. In the process he dragged his foot outside the popping crease. The wicket-
keeper removed the bails. The batsman dragged his bat into the crease. There was an appeal to me. It was close, but in my opinion, the batsman was too late and thus I gave him "Out". Needless to say, the batsman was not happy. Just two balls later, the new batsman was completely beaten and was bowled by the bowler. So all of a sudden Purasalavakkam was 39/2.

It was 22nd over and there was no wicket that fell after the 11th over. So Comrades were desperate to get a wicket. There was a huge appeal to me for caught behind. I turned it down, as I did not hear any noise or saw any deflection. At this point of time I do not remember the incident exactly, so cannot give you any details. The very next over they got their man and finally a breakthrough.

In 28th over, there was a big shout from closing in fielder for an LBW, but immediately to my relief, the bowler said that the batsman had hit the bowl. Actually, the bowler blocked my view and I could not really see what happened. Anyway, since I was in doubt, I would have given 'Not Out'. Thankfully it did not come to my decision :). The drinks was taken at the end of 30 overs. Comrades were doing excellent in terms of over rate, but only that they were not able to take wickets. On the last ball of 34th over, there was another appeal for LBW. In this case the ball pitched outside the leg and the impact was on the leg. But as soon as the ball pitches outside leg, we (umpires) do not have to worry. It is 'Not Out'. After that, the Purasalavakkam lost patience and the wickets started falling in regular intervals but it was too late for the Comrades and the game still went into the 50th over and the last wicket fell on the first ball of that over. The score was 261. Time was 1250. The innings ended 10 minutes before the scheduled time. So the game would end at least 10 minutes before the scheduled time :).

The highlight of the innings was that the captain of the Purasalavakkam, Ravindran scored a century. The opening bowler Hari took 5 wickets.

The second innings started at 1335 after the lunch break. This time the game started from my end, hence I had the opportunity to call 'Play'. Just 20 minutes into the game the captain of fielding side was injured and wanted to leave the field. Now the substitute who comes in his place cannot captain the side, so we checked who among the nominated player would be deputising. Once confirmed, we went ahead with the game.

Just in the 7th over of the innings, I had lapse of concentration and another instance of my rustiness was evident. It was the last ball of the over. The ball was short pitched and went above the shoulder height of the batsman. As per our league rules, one for the over is allowed. I was a bit confused if I had to call a No ball or not. Then I just ended up warning the bowler. That warning was unnecessary as it was the last ball of the over. It created some sort of confusion in the player's mind. But the damage was already done.

First wicket fell in the 8th over, the next one fell in the 10th. After one hour, at first drinks the Comrades were 37/2 in 13 overs. Purasalavakkam were 2 overs short. In the 15th over, the non-striker who was also the opening batsman, came to me and asked if he could retire as he was feeling feverish. I told him that he could, but his return would be with the consent of the opposing captain. Since we cannot judge his illness, we had no say in his return. This would not to come under the wholly acceptable reasons. I consulted with my colleague as well. Even he said the same thing. So the batsman decided to stay back. Sometimes we have to take such hard stance. In the very next over, he was dismissed and he would be a relieved man.

In the 18th over, I was standing at square leg. The batsman was captain of the Comrades. He played away from the body, there was a sound that I could hear, obviously I could not see what hit what. But I could judge that the batsman was playing away from the body and his bat was in air, so the sound could be only bat hitting the ball. Needless to say, there was an appeal and the umpire at bowler's end gave him out. The batsman stood at his place in disbelief. I did not understand why. Sometimes the players do this. But it does not make any sense when it is very obvious that the batsman was out.

After that 18th over dismissal, no wicket fell for a while. In the 23rd over there was a bowling change. The batsman went for full blooded sweep from outside the off stump. The ball turned viciously towards the batsman and brushed his pad and was neatly collected by the wicket-keeper. There was a huge appeal from the bowler, keeper and the slip fielder. I turned it down. In my opinion, it did not touch the bat. Now it was turn for the bowler to gaze in disbelief. When the second drinks was taken, the score was 92/4 in 26 overs. So Purasalavakkam was now 4 overs short.

In the 33rd over there were two appeals for LBW. Both met the same result. First one, I turned down, as the impact was outside the off stump and the batsman was offering a shot. The other one was turned down as well, as in my opinion, the ball was going down the leg. The first decision resulted in disappointment. Second one was accepted gracefully. Impact outside off stump is always difficult for the fielders to digest. In most of the cases, the players are not clear about the law.

35th over of Comrades's innings was the highlight of the day. The ball was short pitched, the batsman, top scorer of the innings, went for the pull, the bowl took the top edge of the bat and went high in the sky towards the short fine-leg. The only fielder who could go for that catch was the wicket-keeper and rightly so, he did. He had to cover a lot of distance. By the time, the ball came down, it looked highly impossible for the keeper to reach the ball. But at this point of time, something happened, that I have never seen in this league. The keeper dived full stretch and importantly, even held on to that catch. It was a stunner and called for applause even from the opponents and he did get that as well. Even I could not stop myself from clapping for that effort.

The innings of Comrades finally folded in 36th over and the final score was 140 all out. Purasalwakkam had won the game by 121 runs. The luck that favoured Comrades in the toss did not continue till the end. For me, more importantly, the game ended at 1626, more than 45 minutes before the scheduled finish time. It is always a nice feeling when the game ends a bit early than scheduled :). Thankfully on that day I did not have to travel back to Bangalore. So I did not have to rush back to home. But on days when I have to travel back, early finish does come handy. But today also it was useful as my sisters were waiting at home to tie Rakhi, on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. Now at least they did not have to wait long.

Finally I am able to finish this. I will try to keep the updates regular. Also I will make an attempt to make this interesting read. Any sort of feedback is welcome.

Scoreboard:http://www.tnca.in/LiveSite/DisplayScorecard.aspx?matchCode=8161&TrophyCode=11

I was hit by the cricket ball

After reading the title, wondering what is the big deal :-). I accept. Not a big deal for you. Neither it is for me now, but when I was hit, it was indeed painful. Very very painful. And I have been hit twice.

Both the occasions when I was umpiring. So umpiring is not as safe as it looks on the TV screen. We as umpires do not have to face the likes of Brett Lee or Shane Bond to be hit. But that does not prevent us from being hit either. It is not that I have been hit only twice, but these two occasions were really painful.

The first occasion was when I was in Belgium last year, 2010. It was around the beginning of the season. The match was between Antwerp Indians CC v Belgium Development side (U-19). It was AICC batting, first innings of the game. The batsman (if I remember correctly) was Sehul Javeri. He was hitting the ball all round the park. It was very evident that BDS would have to chase some very big score. Sehul hit a perfect straight drive. This occasion I was at the bowling end. The ball was coming straight towards me. It was at my face height. It was coming really fast. This was not the first time that I was in such a situation. The only thing that I had to do was to get away from the line of the ball. On a normal day, I would have done so. As I had mentioned in one of my previous post, I have been struggling with my knee for more than a year now. June 2010 was the time when I was just recovering from my injury. At that point of time, to make rapid movements from one position to other was a huge problem for me. In umpiring, one has to do that a lot. Without any doubt last season, I had been struggling to move around. In this situation, when the ball was coming towards me, to prevent myself from being hit, I had to move away, but my knee did not help. The ball was very close and the only thing that I could do was to raise my hand to prevent myself from being it on the face. All this happened in span of couple of seconds. It was well in time and the ball hit my elbow (right at the joint) and it was a nasty blow. The next moment, I was on the ground with excruciating pain. Luckily, ice cubes were available with the home team (AICC) and I rubbed the point of injury with ice for about 5 minutes. I felt some relief. Later, I wrapped up few pieces for ice in my handkerchief. Then resumed my umpiring with the handkerchief tied around my elbow. I continued like that till the ice melted. The pain was still there but bearable and did not impact my umpiring much, though I had two injuries to manage now (one on my knee and another on my elbow). But somehow I managed both and the game as well. Luckily, I did not have any fracture, there was no swelling, but I had to live with the pain for another couple of weeks.

The next incident was this year in February back in India. It was a game between Twentieth Century CC and Minerva CC. The game was played in Chennai Medical College ground. This was the most uneven ground that I had come across. But we had no other choice but to play the game. The fielders were having tough time fielding the ball, as the ball would suddenly jump in front of them. The maximum damage would be done when the fielder is at the boundary. He would be all set to field the ball and then all of a sudden the ball would take an unprecedented turn or bounce (because of the unevenness of the ground) and will cross the boundary. On one such occasion, the ball crossed the boundary. I was umpiring at the bowling end. I have the habit of scoring as well when I am umpiring. On this occasion, as the ball crossed the boundary, I signalled 4 to the scorer and then I was busy recording the 4 on my card. My attention was completely towards the card. The fielder threw the ball towards the bowler. The ball pitched in front of the bowler, the bowler was ready to collect. At this point of time, the ball took a vicious turn and bounced high and by the time I realized what happened, I was down on the ground. The ball had hit my left jaw joint. The pain was unbearable. More than the pain, I was worried about any possible fracture of the jaw. My jaw had already been fractured once in the past (not while playing or umpiring) and I was still bearing the scar (figuratively) of that. So I did not want another one. With all these thoughts in mind, I was releived to know that one of the team had ice with them. I touched my jaw and there was very little swelling, which gave me a hope that there was no fracture. I tried to open my mouth wide open and I was able to do it with no severe pain. This was another positive. But I had to rub the jaw with ice to prevent the injury from worsening. I did it for a while and then, like previous incident, I wrapped some ice in the handkerchief and held it against my jaw with the left hand and resumed the game. So with one hand on my jaw, I began umpiring as well. I am not sure, if I was being foolish or being brave (in my opinion, neither of them), but I wanted to carry on with the game. In my assessment (as in previous incident as well), the injury was not severe enough for me to leave the field. I was able to manage the game, without any problem. The game got over but like before, I had to bear this pain for another week or two. In this case it was even more painful as whenever I had to eat something, I had to bear this pain.

That completes the narration of the two painful incidents that I had. Wondering why I had to come up with this now, as both the incidents are not recent one. The answer is very simple, I am making an honest attempt to keep my blog alive. With season coming to an end, I will not have any games in the recent future. That would mean that I will not have any game that I could discuss in this blog. The result, another break in my writing. So I thought, I will come up with some incidents from my past.

Hope it was not a painful reading. :) Will try to come up with something less painful (if you are lucky, more interesting) next time. :)

Game 9 this season

As promised in my previous post, here I am with a write up on my game on May 1, 2011. I know it is more than a week late, but anyway, it is better than not coming up with one. Sorry for the choice of the title. I could not come up with anything better.

May 1 is normally a holiday. It was even Sunday this time. I was not fortunate to have a day off. I had to stand in this 50 overs game, that too on a very hot day.

This was an interesting game as it was between the top two teams of the Division 4A. It was game between TSRMSC and Jupiter SC. TSRMSC was at the top of the table having won all 10 games so far. Jupiter SC had just lost 1 game out of 10 played. So, that meant that if TSRMSC won this game, they would be the champions. But if Jupiter SC won this game, then there would be a play off between the same two teams to decide the champion. So that means we umpires had a tough game ahead.

My colleague for the day was Mr K. Raghuram. He too qualified as an umpire in 2009 with me. This season, since I was not in India for most part of the season, this was only my 9th game. But this guy had already done 50+ games this season and overall he has done some 75 games in just two seasons. He has already been rewarded for his dedication. He has done two Division 1 games (3 days game) so far and he is expected to get Division 1 games in the beginning of the next season. So here was a guy from whom, I can draw some inspiration and work really hard to beat his count :-).

Now let me come back to the game :). The venue for the game was IIT Stadium. TSRMSC won the toss and elected to field. This was a surprise choice, as I have never seen any team in these leagues electing to field first. This meant that they had tremendous confidence in their bowling attack. I hoped that their bowling does come good and we had a shorter game. Remember, the heat was already too much at 9:30 in the morning.

The game started at 9:30 AM and the very first over offered an opportunity to the fielding team. But the fielder at first slip missed a sharp catch. Jupiter started their batting with aggression and were around 7 per over till wicket fell in each of the 5th and 6th over. Jupiter were 41/2 then. Then steadily their run rate started dipping.

It was just 10 overs and we were all sweating profusely. Though the first water break was scheduled only at 10:30 AM, we were allowing the teams to have water during the over breaks. More the frequency of such break, it would mean that there could be a delay in finishing the game. At the same time, lesser such breaks would mean that we would not have enough players in good conditions till the end of the game. So, we as an umpires had to strike that balance.

Meanwhile, another wicket fell in 11th over. Jupiter were now 58/3, you can see the run rate has already come down. This fall of wicket was something special. This kind of incident happened for the first time in my umpiring career (still premature to call it a career :)). The bowler was bowling from my end, left arm bowler, bowling round the wicket, coming diagonal. It was right hand batsman. The ball pitched outside the off stump, the batsman lunged forward to reach the ball, the ball turned away from him, caressing the edge of the bat, the keeper took the catch and as soon as he completed it, he whipped off the bails in a flash, the batsman in the process of lunging, dragged his back foot outside the crease. In the excitement, all of them appealed to the striker's end umpire and the umpire had no hesitation in giving the batsman out. Then I went to my colleague and told him that it was a legal catch as well, which meant that catch takes precedence when compared to stumping. So it had to be recorded as caught behind and not stumping. My colleague agreed and we asked the scorer to record it as caught behind.

After couple of overs, of the same bowler, the batsman tried to go for a slog sweep, he missed it completely. The ball rose and hit the helmet of the batsman and fell short of the man in gully. The fielder dived but could not get it. The captain was disappointed with the fielder's effort. The captain asked me if the ball had hit the bat, to which I responded in negative. The captain was disappointed with my response. I do not know if he was sure that the batsman had hit, why he had to ask me :). Anyway, everyone thought that it had hit the bat during the sweep, but somehow I was not convinced. Thankfully the catch was not taken, so no damage done (to me :), of course).

Another couple of overs, there was a huge appeal from the fielders and a mild appeal from the bowler from my end for LBW. I turned it down as the ball was high and there was no way it could have hit the stumps. When I could see the the bails below the level of ball, and the ball is rising, it could not have been out. As the bowler was walking back to his run up, his captain told him that the appeal should have been full hearted, only then he could get a better result (I think the previous incident contributed to this remark). This is not the first time I have heard such comments from the players. They completely forget that we do not base our decisions solely on how confident the bowler is (sometimes that also contributes), but we base our decisions on the facts that we see. They always has this notion of louder and longer their appeal is, better is their chances of getting a decision in their favor, which is not the case. Anyway, the decision was made and game progressed without any issue.

Another wicket fell in the 19th over and then there was a drought of wickets for another 18 overs. These 18 overs, with no wickets falling and the heat having its impact, we were all getting drained. It was very much visible in the body language of the fielding team. In the 30th over, the bowler (was bowling spin) bowled a ball well above the waist high, it was really high but still below the shoulder level. I immediately called it no ball, which was a correct decision. It was my next step which increased the temperature on the ground further. I gave first warning for unfair delivery. The captain was of the opinion that it was a slow bowler, hence the warning was not valid. My colleague confirmed that it demanded a warning but the captain of the fielding team was not impressed. Neither were we with his on field behavior. The wicket keeper even went to the extent of telling my colleague to go and check the rule book. The players always have their own interpretation of the rules. The rule does talk about the slow bowl being bowled above shoulder high as dangerous and not when it is bowled above waist high. So it is the speed of the bowl that counts and not the nature of the bowler. If the bowler is bowling spin, does not mean that he is necessarily bowling slow.

Finally the relief came for the fielding team in 39th over when they were able to break the 5th wicket partnership. The innings lasted full 50 overs but the batsmen in hurry to score quick lost their wickets and the final score of Jupiter read 214/10 at the end of 50 overs. My hope at the toss that the first innings would end soon did not happen and we had to spend full 3 hours 40 mins in the scorching heat.

The next innings started at scheduled time of 1:45 PM. TSRMSC being at the top of the table, I expected a fight from them in this innings, which would mean that the innings would last for full 50 overs. I prepared myself mentally to stand in the heat for next three hours. But it was not and auspicious start for TSRMSC, they lost their first wicket in the 2nd over when the batsman was adjudged LBW. The batsman was visibly upset, not that he was justified. He stayed there in crease for quiet sometime. Thereafter TSRMSC started losing wickets at regular interval. At the end of 11th over they were 30/5. The bowler was on hatrick at the end of this over but could not get that in his next over. The heat was taking a toll and water was coming in the field almost at the end of every over. The fall of wickets continued and I could not see any real fight from the batting side. The innings finally folded in 30th over. TSRMSC scored just 87. The match ended more than an hour before the scheduled time. This was a relief for everyone except the losing team, of course.

This means that TSRMSC and Jupiter SC will have another game to decide the champion in their zone. Not sure who will umpire that game. For now, this game was over and it was a relief for me. I had to leave the same night for Bangalore, so this would give me some time to relax before I start for my travel. The cricket season 2010-11 is coming to an end. I am not sure, how many more games I will get. But I will try my best to keep you all updated. Till then have a nice time.

Back in business

Yes, I am back in business, both in blogging and umpiring. I am not sure how long I will continue with blogging, but umpiring is going to stay.

In fact, after my return to India on January 14, 2011, I started umpiring the very next week. This year already I have done 9 TNCA league games (Eight 50 overs and one 30 overs). In fact, it should have been two 30 overs game, but one of them was abandoned because of the overnight rain in Chennai.

The highlight of the season so far was, me getting to do two "Division 3" games. So far, I had been doing games only in "Division 4" and "Division 5". The other interesting thing was that these two "Division 3" games were on the turf. It was a very nice experience. It was really good to see the true bounce of the surface. Otherwise, on mats, sometimes you never know, if the bounce was a result of the bowler's effort or was it because of the unevenness of the surface under the mats.

Overall, I have done 45 games so far (excluding the 30 overs game). I need to work a lot on my concentration. The trouble in my knee has been a great source of distraction. No excuses, of course. Lapse of concentration has definitely lead to a few wrong decisions (of course in hindsight). When I take the decision, I do believe that it is correct but an afterthought sometimes tells you that it could have been wrong. But of course, you cannot verify that with anyone. You have to just go by your judgement. There will be always set of players who will be unhappy with you, so you cannot take that as a criteria to evaluate yourself.

The current season is almost ending. I have a game tomorrow. I think couple of more weeks and the curtains will be down for the current season. The next season will start in July 2011. The target for the next season will be to do at least one "Division 1" game. It is a three day game, so should be interesting. Also, there would be big names involved.

I will try to come up with a write up for my tomorrow's game. If I am not able to , do not be annoyed.

Till then, bye bye.

Dream Come True

In the journey of umpiring, it was another small step. This Thursday, i.e. May 13, 2010, I was appointed to umpire the game between Belgium and Germany. This was the first international game of my umpiring journey. Though this was just a friendly game and did not have an official status, the teams competing were the national sides of the respective countries. In fact were not allowed to call this a Belgium v Germany game. So it was called Belgium XI v German Selection. This was my first opportunity to umpire at this level. I never ever imagined in my wildest dream that I would ever umpire a game between national sides so soon (I have started umpiring only in 2008). Though I have umpired only one season (2008) in Belgium (I missed completely 2009 in Belgium though I did 4 games in India), I am happy that my efforts had been recognized and I had been given this opportunity. This is indeed no way close to what I have to achieve as an umpire, but this small step would definitely go down as a highlight of my umpiring journey (Note, I am still not calling it a career).

May 13 was a holiday in Belgium, so that made it is easy for me. I did not have to convince my manager for a leave. I decided the night before that I will have a good sleep, so that I wake up fresh. When I was going to my bed, I knew deep in my heart if something that could spoil my chance of making an international debut, it was the Belgian weather. True to its reputation, the weather did not disappoint me. Indeed when I woke up the next day, it was raining, though not heavily (which again is typical of Belgium). It was too early in the day (7 am), I knew it could change anytime in the coming hours. It could get better or even worse. Since that was not in my control, I did not bother about it much. I finished my daily chores. Then I went through the regulation of the game once again.

The game was supposed to start at 12:30 pm. It was 50 overs game. Scotty was giving me a ride today to Rumst (where the game was to be played). We decided to meet at our usual meeting point, i.e. the airport at 11:00 am. I left my house at 10:00 am. It was still drizzling. We reached the ground at 11:30 am. Still it was drizzling. Peter, my colleague for the day was already there. BCF officials were also there. Some Belgian players were already busy with their warm ups. German team had not arrived yet.

I helped Marc Vandereviere (official scorer of Belgium) and Sheel Shukla (Manager, Belgium Team) in marking the inner circles. During this time, I observed that the ground was still very wet. I was still not sure if we would be able to start the game on time. Deep in my heart I did not want a truncated game. First international game being a truncated game would not suit the bill.

By 11:45 am, we saw that the German team also arrived clad in red tracks. Soon they took to the field starting their drills. Very similar to the Belgian team, the German team also had majority of people from Indian and Pakistani origin. The only difference was that the Belgian team had more number of Pakistani origins and German team had more number of Indian origin people.
Since the start of the game was 12:30 pm, the toss should happen between 12:00 no0n and 12:15 pm. We were still not sure if we would be able to start at 12:30, considering the drizzling that was still in progress. Very typical of Belgian weather, the drizzling stopped, and we diced to go for the toss at 12:15 pm. Belgium XI won the toss and elected to bat first. This was a very practical decision considering that the ground was wet. No captain would like to field under this conditions.

As an umpire we had to asses the fitness of the ground to play the game. Though the ground was wet, it was still not dangerous not to play. Moreover we did not want to waste any time that we got in between the rain. So we started the game at 12:30 pm as scheduled. My first game at this level and I had goofed up. I forgot to take the match ball to the field and that created a bit of confusion to begin with. Since the ground was wet, German captain James suggested that he would prefer to change the ball after 25 overs. The ball would be replaced by a dry old ball. Belgian captain Javed agreed.

The bowlers were finding it really hard to grip the surface and as a result, they leaked to many extras. This helped the Belgian openers to settle down without taking much risk. The score went to 42 in just 6 overs when German had their first breakthrough. After this fall of wicket, the scoring slowed and by end if 17th over, Belgians were 86/4. We thought that there was an early finish on the cards. I was very un happy as, being my first international, I wanted a full 100 overs game. At this point of time, the captain Javed Iqbal joined Shahid Ahmed and began the consolidation. It was very evident from their batting that they wanted to stay their as long as they could. This resulted in severla maiden overs in between and scoring rate fell drastically. The bowlers (especially Tarun and Kashif) were bowling in good lines, but were not able to break this partnership. This was resulting in some sort of frustration among them. The sledging was in full flow. It was not agrressive but continuous. Moreover it was in Hindi and I could understand everything that was going on. It was really amusing. The partnership had streched from 18th over till 38th over without taking any risk. First sign of agression came when Tarun was hit outside the park on the last ball of 39th over. From then on, the scoring rate galloped. Every bowler bleeded runs. Captain was tempted to make a bowling changes and introduce Rishi in 41st over. Even his last ball went for a six. In the meantime both Javed and Shahid had reached their half centuries and the partnership had grown to 131. In 43rd over, Rishi produced the ball, that each German was waiting for. Shahid was finally out caught but the damage was already done. Belgium XI were 217 for 6 now. Soon Javed also departed and Belgian Team finally were bowled out in the last over and the target set to German Selection was 256. Rishi ended up with 4 wickets in as many overs. German captain must be wondering, why he did not make him bowl in the beginning.

After a break of 45 mins, the German selection started their chase of 256, which by no means was a small target. Moreover, the rain had stopped and it would be far more easier for the bowlers to bowl. Germans began their chase slowly and they were definitely not helped by the disciplined bowling from Shar Khan and Shalin. In the 6th over Shalin gave them a double jolt and they were 26/2. Germans were in no mood to surrender after this double jolt, so they put their heads down and looked for a partnershipscoring in singles, doubles and occasional boundaries. Belgian bowling also did not give them many chances to score freely. Then finally the defence of Germans were broken and the third wicket fell in 21st over. The score was 82. At this stage, Germans were still in the chase. But soon Belgian captain shuffeled with their bowlers and that gave results. The scoring rate dropped and Germans started losing wickets in regular intervals. In spite of the regular fall of wickets, their innings lasted till 42nd over when their 9th wicket fell at a score of 155. At this point of time, the German Selection decided to call it off as their last batsman was injured and they declared the innings over. The game ended in a very unusual way. My first international game was over. It was a releif. It was almost a complete game. Rain luckily did not play a spoil sport, at least in terms of interupting the game. To be very honest, I was very disappointed by the quality of the game. Germany is in a division higher than Belgium, but the way the game progressed (apart from the first 20 overs), it looked the other way round. The level of game was very much comparable to the division 1 games in Belgian League. So there was nothing special.

At least for the name sake I had done an international game. The level in no way is near to the normal ODI games. I am waiting to see how far I progress in this path. It is a tough ask and lot of perseverance is needed. Hope I am able to put all the hard work required and keep myself motivated.