Cricket @ Synopsys - Continued ..

I know you people must be waiting for the result of the match ... Being in such a good position , we were in the drivers seat .. I was a happy man an hour ago , but the crucial over came when i bowled the 17th over , the scores read 78/8 in 16 overs.. Another 40 odd runs in 9 overs... 2 wickets to go...

I bowled the first ball of 17th over , short pitched delivery on the leg stick , bang there it goes for a huge six... Now i started feeling the pressure ... Next ball , full toss , straight down the ground almost missed the boundary by inches , ( sigh of relief for me :-) ) ..My hands started to sweat and couldn't hold the ball properly ..My captain was ushering me to keep it straight , the fielders were strengthened on the off side, then came the 3rd ball bang on target leg stick , there it goes to leg side boundary ... So 14 of 3 balls ... Our confidence weakened , fielders shouting at me.. But i could manage the next 3 ball without giving any runs ... 1 over 14 runs , the turning point of the match ...

And then the batsmen played sensibly .. They played like top order batsmen taking singles of almost every ball .. The fielding was spread , fear that we would lose the match... They played like real champions ... Nothing can be taken away from them ... One guy supported the other and they played in with immense command.. Stealing singles and scored an odd boundary ... Finally the result was obvious we lost to a better team..

But sometimes when i think back and do a post mortem i would say we were very unluncky , we weren't given runouts and a caught behind appeal ... Our fielders were very sharp on the fielding ... But anyways , thats part of the game .. No one can be complained and i even heard the unmpire say " I gave a wrong decision (caught behind appeal) which costed us the match.. Thats how cricket is played ... The whole night i was thinking about the match and i felt bad , could have done better ... But i always tell to myself , maybe the best days are ahead and this was just an experience ...

So to everyone , handling pressure is an art and i think maybe late Bob Woolmer failed at excelling @ this art ... The amount of pressure ,tension , stress playing at international level is now the talking point ... Lets pray his soul rest in peace...