Maiden Over

“Dot ball. Ponting realising the danger of nicking the ball and not offering a shot. Good bowling by this lad, he’s proving that he can be as good as Irfan at the other end.”

Irfan. Irfan. Irfan. Irfan was the darling of the media, while he was always the step-son. Though he was arguably a better bowler than Irfan, he could never reach out to the masses as Irfan did. He could never sign as many autographs or make the crowd chant his name. In the dressing room, his voice never had as much weight as Irfan’s. He was, at best, the guy at the other end of Irfan. Deep down below, this irked his conscience, but the mature person he was, he did not utter a word. He brought this simmering rage into his bowling. If Irfan gave four, he would give two. If Irfan gave a wide, he would give none.

“Oh, this is a quicker one, taking Ponting by surprise and landing into the gloves of the keeper. This is very good bowling.”

He and Irfan had spent a good part of the last season with Wasim bhai. He was their mentor, the most celebrated exponent of the reverse-swing. He tuned their run-ups, supervised their action. Like a cruel taskmaster, Wasim bhai drove them to run in from either end of the pitch getting them to perfect their actions. He would hammer five stumps into the pitch and ask them to bowl on the sixth stump. As they began to stick to their line, the number of stumps decreased. By the end of three weeks, they could uproot a lone stump with clinical accuracy, bowling from either end of the wicket.

“This is clever cricket. He’s pitched it in line and taken it away from the right hander. A little nick and Ponting would have been walking.”

He derived a strange pleasure in this cat and mouse game. Like a criminal he plotted their downfall, creating a ploy and doggedly pushing the batsman to take the bait. Sometimes he would go for boundaries, but he would come back to his line and tempt again. He had enormous patience and an unsurpassed tenacity to perform. As he walked to his marker, he shined the ball with renewed vigour.

"This is an absolute beauty, He’s given it some room, but Ponting unable to decide whether to drive it or cut it. He’s begun to lose his cool now."

His last four deliveries had gone untouched into the hands of the wicketkeeper, each one veering a little towards the slip than the previous. He could sense the batsman slowly inching across his guard, tempted to drive, but backing away at the last moment. He savoured this moment. This was his most lethal quality and he prided himself on being able to exploit it with more success than anyone else in the country. Together with Irfan Pathan, he formed a formidable pace battery, two more deliveries without runs and this would be their sixth maiden over in a row this afternoon.

“Excellent delivery. This is tight bowling. India really turning on the heat now.”

He had pitched it up a bit short of good length, causing the ball to rise a bit so that the batsman had to bend back and fall in line across which he had moved to play the ball. One more, one more, he muttered to himself as he focused on what to choose next from his arsenal. He felt a drop of perspiration making its way down his spine, tickling him as reached his waist. He pressed his shirt to his body, to absorb the wetness and spat out the gum he was chewing. He loved the electric feeling of the final ball. There was a pregnant expectation as the crowd fell silent. A quick glance around the field, the slip cordon was ready, his captain and few others outside the circle were on their toes, slowly moving into position. Like a hunter homing in on his kill, he ran towards the pitch.

As he nursed his broken tooth, he vowed for the umpteenth time not to dream on a treadmill.