Pricking heat all over my body. The tshirt clings to my back, as I wipe sweat off my forehead and look ahead. The heat blurs my vision. Eleven guys standing with their eyes on me, more attention from the dressing rooom focussed on my every move. I take guard, pausing momentarily to shake the stiffness out of my arms, and tap my bat down on the muddy concrete strip ever so gently, and look ahead, in apt attention. Twenty minutes to play out, and the test match will be drawn.
Sledging, in its most rudimentary and detestable form, going on in full swing. But the proponents of that too, from all the depths of the slip cordon, pause as the bowler thunders in. Tennis ball whizzes past me. I let it be. No pain, no gain. The ball is taken adroitly by the keeper, and as if on cue, all the close in fielders erupt in verbal volleys of taunts, and snide remarks.
And on the match trundles. Last wicket to get for them. Ten more minutes to go for us. A slow leg spinner bowling. As the minutes have passed, the sledging and banter have gone down, the field has spread, and the pressure has eased off. I play one ball deftly, dodge the other, leave the third undisturbed, and pad off the fourth and fifth ones. Suddenly they have upped the tempo, and the verbal barrages are back. The temptation to whack one over their heads is too much. I beg the sane part of me for permission to do the same.
Last ball of the over. Looping slow ball, slow even by spinners' standards. Screw everything else. In that split second, I make up my mind to go for it. Advancing down the track, I hit it firmly. Oh...but was I a tad too early on the shot? And my worst fears are confirmed, I realize in the eternity between my hitting the shot, and the sound of the hit reaching my ears. The ball travels the distance, but lacks that extra punch to carry it past. And in that instant I know I am doomed. The fielder pouches it. And the fielders go beserk. I kick the gravel in anger, and swear in utter disbelief at my own naivete.
Why did I go for it? I ask myself a million times on the way back to the dressing room. Needless to say, we lost the match.
Moral of the story: Temperament is what greatness is made of.
