A Cricket Match

Last winter I happened to sea a cricket match in Delhi. The match was played between Indian cricket team and the West-Indies cricket team. The match was played at Ferozeshah Kotla groungs. Cricket is quite an interesting game. Every game has its plus points. It fosters discipline, duty, team-spirit, cooperation and a sportsman?s spirit. Some of the Indian players are players of international repute. Cricket is played between two teams of 11 members each, it is on a flat, smooth and clean ground. Cricket requires, two seats of stumps, wickets and a ball. The distance between two sets of wickets is 22 yards. The bowlers take their turns after every six balls. In this fielding is also necessary for victory. Before the game starts, there is the toss. It is the whim of the toss winning captain to first go for batting or fielding. The fielding party puts three fieldsmen on the one side, six on the off side, while one is posted for guarding the wicket and one for the bowling. The game is generally played for six hours a day. The umpire is the final judge. He is the man who declares the players ?out?; whether they are run out, bowled out, caught out, stumped out or leg-before-wicket out. The match which I witnessed was really very interesting. There was huge gathering at the Ferozshah Kotala grounds. India?s leading cricketers were playing in the match. I saw the fine game of tendulkar. He hit many boundaries, while Azhar was playing very carefully. But soon Tendulkar was out. Then he was replaced by Sidhu. He made 50 runs in 76 minutes while Ganguly made 66 runs in 70 minutes. Soon there was break for lunch. The Indian team made 219 runs for there wickets before lunch. Then the West Indies players started bowling after lunch. Marshall bowled very fast and he stumped of Sidhu. Soon he was replaced by Manjrekar. He hit three sixers. There was a tremendous cheer from the spectators. There was great excitement among the spectators as well as players. Everyone was in high spirits. Manjrekar played upto the end and he scored over a century. Then the umpire gave a long whistle and the match ended for the day. The spectators dispersed. Some of the cricket fans were patting Manjrekar for his brilliant performance. Soon the crowd fizzled out and we came back home. It was a thrilling match for me.