As we reached the ground, the drizzle had stopped but the clouds were still hovering around. For the first time I felt that the squad believes it can win today. Lordie was all fired up. He was leading the warm up session. He walked up to the Skipper and spoke to him for about 5 minutes. I could sense that, right at that very moment, we were witnessing a huge shift in our mindset today.
After the warm-ups, the 11 was announced. And I realised that I had got everything wrong. If I were to read too much into it, I could come up with a conspiracy theory that the management had done this to prove me wrong. But, I will just own it up. I saw the back-up keeper practicing so hard that I felt he was in. And the same goes for our Bangla Tiger. And, I tried to play skipper in selecting Junta Tormentor. Anyway, I got them all wrong which clearly shows that I am not as smart as I pretend to be.
Before the skipper went out to toss, I had a first-hand experience of what made Lordie such an accomplished captain during his time. He took over the match briefing, and boy, was he charged up or what. He just let loose, telling the boys what is expected of them, telling them that they are part of the best team in IPL and they need to stand up and be counted. (I must tell you that I stood up right at that moment, but I don’t think the counting was on then). And he has balls too. Imagine the slowest member of the team chastising guys twice as fast on matters such as agility, speed and throwing. I mean, it takes some special kind of confidence to do so. I am convinced he has royal blue blood running through his veins. We mortal beings would never manage to do this.
On a serious note though, the man knows how to motivate the boys. He may be slow on the field and, at this age, slow off the field as well. May be he doesn’t understand T20 well enough, but when it comes to being of leader of men, there are few who can match him.
Dildo had joined us during that time. He stood there deep in thought probably wondering if he is backing the right horse. By the time the skipper went out to toss, I knew that the toss didn’t really matter. We have the match in our bag. Chatterjee Kaku was right, after all
After the warm-ups, the 11 was announced. And I realised that I had got everything wrong. If I were to read too much into it, I could come up with a conspiracy theory that the management had done this to prove me wrong. But, I will just own it up. I saw the back-up keeper practicing so hard that I felt he was in. And the same goes for our Bangla Tiger. And, I tried to play skipper in selecting Junta Tormentor. Anyway, I got them all wrong which clearly shows that I am not as smart as I pretend to be.
Before the skipper went out to toss, I had a first-hand experience of what made Lordie such an accomplished captain during his time. He took over the match briefing, and boy, was he charged up or what. He just let loose, telling the boys what is expected of them, telling them that they are part of the best team in IPL and they need to stand up and be counted. (I must tell you that I stood up right at that moment, but I don’t think the counting was on then). And he has balls too. Imagine the slowest member of the team chastising guys twice as fast on matters such as agility, speed and throwing. I mean, it takes some special kind of confidence to do so. I am convinced he has royal blue blood running through his veins. We mortal beings would never manage to do this.
On a serious note though, the man knows how to motivate the boys. He may be slow on the field and, at this age, slow off the field as well. May be he doesn’t understand T20 well enough, but when it comes to being of leader of men, there are few who can match him.
Dildo had joined us during that time. He stood there deep in thought probably wondering if he is backing the right horse. By the time the skipper went out to toss, I knew that the toss didn’t really matter. We have the match in our bag. Chatterjee Kaku was right, after all
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