Systems Cricket League

Pre-planning meet activities included creating a working prototype for Hackathon, preparing a skit for Ad Mad Show and Box Cricket. So the Systems Cricket League included eight teams: Pranksters, REAPers, Binary Bombers, Thugs of Hackistan, i17, Game Changers, Baahubali and Shatranj k Khiladi. Rules were mailed by the event managers. Each team would have 6 members to play; of which one will be compulsorily a female. She would also be the opening batsman + bat for one over. The first over from the opposite team would also be bowled by a female. There would be 4 overs match. In the playoffs, each team would get chance to play against two other teams. So there were total of 8 playoff matches. I, who never took the bat in hand or even touched the ball, was nominated by my team Baahubali. Never mind there is always a first time to do things, here it was playing cricket. But sports require practice which I didn't do. The ground was booked at the Lions Municipal Sports Complex, Astro Park near Milan Subway from 5pm to 9pm. Sarvesh was keeping track on the scores. There was one umpire and many commentators cum audiences. The first match was between Shatranj k Khiladi and i17, wherein Chetna Dabral and Sathiya Krishnan scored sixes for their teams. The second match was between REAPers and Binary Bombers wherein Namrata Nimje and Sneha Patil played against each other. My match was third in the queue and against Game Changers. I really don't remember how many dead balls, wide balls and no balls I bowled to Vrushali Darade, as if I was practicing during a live match. Boys were playing very well of course, no doubt in that. Even girls did play well. Harika Agasthi was wicket keeper and didn't let any ball go off her hands. Akanksha Shukla made quick runs while running between the wickets. Airplanes were flying over the ground and the sun was on its way saying bye. The yellow lights were on now.

My eyes were glued only on the ball and how the bowler bowls it. The last playoff match was my team against Pranksters. This time I did score two runs against Pavithra D, but it was bowling that I feared more. I again started with a dead ball but then Sanket Dias did shout some motivational words and I bowled the next ball to which Pavithra hit hard but unfortunately Prathmesh Khedekar and Ligory missed to catch due to collision/confusion. Here Pavithra and Madhura Chodankar made one run in the meantime. Now again a dead ball! What was I doing! Nikhil Deshmukh recited "Ek ball, Ek dead, Ek ball, Ek dead". I had to focus; the next ball was a dot ball. Pawan Sir changed his fielding position. The consecutive ball was bowled similar to Madhura and she hit it in same direction and it was caught by Pawan Sir. Yeah finally I took a wicket!! Somehow I finished the over and did wicket keeping. My team was in full spirit of winning the game. We did take wickets early and finally won against Pranksters. The final match was between the top two scorers: Binary Bombers vs Thugs of Hackistan. It was neck to neck battle and Binary Bombers grabbed the first position on the scoreboard. Thugs of Hackistan got the second position. The third position match was i17 vs Game Changers, wherein i17 grabbed the place. All matches were done by 08:30 pm and we left the ground. The box cricket did make many of us to try out things which we never could have otherwise done.