I was born in October 1981. So I am 35. But I can assure you that after the stress and tension of the Sunrisers Hyderabad game, I feel like a worn down 70-year-old. Till around 9.30 pm I felt as if I owned half the planet and ownership papers for the other half were being prepared. Then rain pelted my planet and washed away all my dreams. Almost.
My cricketing cradle was a neighbourhood park in west Delhi. At the time, even a short shower meant end of cricket for the day. Myself and a few others would try everything to dry our ‘MCG’ while cursing the rain.
Then, the action would shift to someone’s petite backyard. I found it boring. No amount of indoor sports, video games or watching TV excited me. I wanted to be out, playing cricket. I have always hated rains.
As we waited for showers to stop, I was thinking, ‘here we go, this could be it’. As it is I’m a bad loser and the possibility of crashing out due to rain was killing me. There were guys playing French cricket and I couldn’t understand how could they? I was at my brooding worst. The official broadcasters made it tougher. Whoever in their team was responsible to fill the rain time was surely not a KKR supporter.
Outside, rain drops felt like nothing less than missiles. Inside the dressing room, Sony ran highlights of our previous games against SRH and Mumbai Indians. We had lost both!
We were about to resume at 11.25, but once again rains picked up and plans got aborted. I was convinced it was not meant to be. I checked the equations and timings again and again.
I was so furious that it made me numb. My mind also took me back to the losses against Punjab and Mumbai. One win, and we’d have been in the top two and wouldn’t have had to go through this. I don’t know how God decides his checks and balances, but I was feeling really hard done by.
A little past midnight, rain stopped and Chinnaswamy’s magical drying facility took over. Karnataka has given us Mysore Dosa, besides a lot in other areas. They can add Chinnaswamy’s drainage facility to that list.
Any other venue in India, with that amount of rain, it would have been game, set and match Sunrisers. Just short of 1 am we were out on the field chasing 48 to win. A few hiccups later we were home. I felt sorry for Sunrisers. I hope someone takes note of rain-affected matches and comes up with a plan B.
Now Mumbai, our bogey team. Yeah, that is what friends on Twitter are calling it. I am not thinking too much about that game, except there is no forecast for rain on Friday.
Dinesh Chopra Media