A Blessings In Disguise

This is a success story of my cricket team. My company participates in an inter-corporate cricket tournament every year. We had a great history of “not winning” a single game in the cup from last two years. But this year, lady-luck changed partner. We prepared a cricket team the same way we do each year. Most of players were the same but this time we participated with a hope to win at least one match.

Our first match was with a poor opponent. With great surprise of all, we scored highest runs in the first inning. We crushed opponent’s all hopes to win by setting an unachievable target. But when we came to bowl, we were too relaxed that opponent chased the highest target made ever in this tournament. We were shocked; we could not convince ourselves that we continued the history by losing highest total targeted match. We hardly spoke to each other and we left the ground. I could not find a single word to describe the situation when I came home back; but only disappointments.

The next match was a knock-out match; do or die situation for our team. We had two weeks in between. We came to company, and decided to practice daily. “Sometimes wining is everything” was true for us now. With a new start, we worked hard on practice. I found everyone was doing his best on the ground. We were waiting for the next play, our turn to show what we were and what we could.

With the end of two weeks, our wait came to an end and we were again standing on the same ground where people saw us losing all the way. Adding to our fortune, the opponent was a three time champion team. But this time we did not want to give away a single chance to our opponent. As per our plan, we won the toss and opted to bowl first. The reason behind our decision was also unorthodox. The day was a chilled cold day and we arrived on ground an hour earlier; so we had enough warm up practice; and our opponent being so confident had not have any warm up exercise even. So we thought to get some early wickets. With the start of innings, their wickets fell like castle of cards falls. With the lowest score on the ground we sent the entire team to pavilion. And we won the game with little extra effort in batting, And Yah! We did it. But we did not relax this time, now our target was not a single match but tournament itself. We kept ourselves on the same track we followed for second match; and we won the whole series.

With the ball, which was hit for winning run, in my hand I was looking at my team, thinking what made this day so enjoyable; our victory of the day or this stage achieved after our first defeat. This tournament left me with many memorable events and a great moral of life "how weak or strong you are if you get relaxed once reaching close to success, it will be snatched from your hands as you are not the only one waiting for it. You have to be consistent until you climb the peak of success and still have to work hard to be there.”