Page 28 - ISS Profectus E Magazine

I finally understand why they say honesty is the best policy. Everyone
lined up to take the oddly-shaped stick and began hitting the red balls.
Dev was amazing. With one beautiful swinging stroke he sent the ball to
the corner most tree in the school yard. Soon I, with fake confidence
marched towards my graveyard.

The weight of 2 litres of sweat in my shoes and the so-called cricket bat
made me feel like carrying 100 kilograms totally. The jeering baller
rubbed the ball on his trousers like he was going to put it on fire. The
three sticks behind had it ensured that I wouldn’t run back and I
remembered Dev once telling me that running around the field was the
job of certain other people.

“So that is it then”, I thought to myself but it unfortunately was not. Mr.
Coach was going to ask us questions one by one. My mind started
flooding with all kinds of possible questions as I crawled my way to
meet the villain of our story.

The hefty-looking coach sharpened his tongue as he bade me to sit
down. “So, why do you think we should select you for the team?”
“Select...uhm......because...uhm...as I support my friends, I mean my
teammates a lot”. “Ok, so now tell me” our villain continued, “Who is
your favourite player?”. “That will be …. uhm...his name is...uhm” I
struggled to find words. I thought through all the past lectures of Dev.
“Come on tell me", the coach urged. “M.S. Saoni Tendulkar!" I yelled.

Well, let's draw the curtains over what happened next.The coach’s
assistant started calling out names of those who were selected after
everyone had finished. I sat slouched on a bench with a hundred and
one percent assurance of not getting selected while my friends’ names
were being called out grandly one after the other.

Suddenly out of the blue, I heard my name being called out in the list of
substitutes. I sat there shocked while everyone started to disperse. The
coach seeing my bomb-stricken face came towards me and said, “Do

you know why I selected you?". "No sir” I replied honestly. “Even while
knowing purely nothing about cricket you showed up for the selections
just because you didn’t want to abandon your friends. I have a feeling

you won’t let your team down. But promise me, M.S. Saoni Tendulkar,
that you will practice whole-heartedly."

“Oh! of course sir, thank you". I ran away from the hero of our story, with
a gratitude brimmed heart, towards my friends to celebrate our
success. It felt like colours were once again added to my black and

white life and this time I was going to discover new colours. Who knows
27
maybe cricket is fun.
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