Junior Premier League

Joy Bhattacharya

Description

The story of India s most exciting junior cricket league When twelve-year-old Neel goes to Ranchi for the summer vacation, he meets Sachin, a local boy who has an amazing new bowling action. Over weeks of practising with each other, Neel realizes that Sachin could be the next Sunil Narine or Muralitharan. Once the vacation is over, Neel returns to Delhi and forgets about Sachin in the excitement of preparing for a place in the Junior Devils, the Delhi team of the first-ever Junior Premier League tournament. But by a quirk of fate, Sachin moves to his uncle s home in Delhi when his father is transferred out of Ranchi. He finally gets his chance to join Neel in the Junior Devils. What follows is a roller coaster of hope, fear, excitement and disappointment that is the lot of every cricketer. It s not easy being a JPL star. But for Sachin, Neel and their friends, the journey s just about to begin.

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351186410
• Langue: English

Extrait

Joy Bhattacharjya with Vivek Bhattacharjya


JUNIOR PREMIER LEAGUE
The First XI
PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PUFFIN BOOKS
JUNIOR PREMIER LEAGUE: THE FIRST XI
Joy Bhattacharjya has been a part of the Kolkata Knight Riders and the amazing IPL journey since the league s inception in 2008. He has spent the majority of his twenty working years directly associated with Indian sport and media, and other than producing live international cricket, also helped create programmes like Super Selector and the ESPN School Quiz.
He writes a couple of quiz columns and the intermittent magazine article, and enjoys conducting the occasional quiz just to torment his fellow beings.
For Neel Bhattacharjya and Shukla Roy
Prologue
It was a costly mistake! You could see the ball soaring towards the floodlights on the south-west stand of the Feroze Shah Kotla stadium. For a moment, it seemed to be crashing into the lights before it finally started dropping and ended up in the eighth row.
There wasn t a sound from the 25, 000 spectators inside the ground, just a few claps and whistles from the Mumbai Patriots team bench. For a few seconds, you could even hear the traffic on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg just outside.
Milind Sugvekar, the Mumbai captain, had seen that ball right out of Asif s hand. Watched it turn as he took two strides down the pitch and lofted it out of the ground with a wicked swing of his bat. He was on 52 now, and Mumbai needed just 34 runs more to win this, the first-ever JPL.
Milind had prepared for this moment for many, many years-from the time he attended his first camp at the age of five at the Shivaji Park ground, to the difficult matting wickets at the MCA Centre at Bandra Kurla to his years of training under the great Rahul Hattangadi. The JPL title was now only a few good hits away.
Thankfully, it was the last ball of the over, thought Neel. He picked up the ball after it was thrown back from the boundary and slowly walked over to the bowlers end. Ravinder rushed in from cover. 6 overs left. I have 1, Keshav has 2 and Asif has 2 as well.
But if we don t get Milind out, he will finish it in the next 2 overs, and he s just hit Asif for 17 runs.
What if we...
You know what happened the last time he bowled to Milind. Sachin can t bowl till Milind is at the crease.
You don t have a choice! said Ravinder. They turned to see Sachin handing his cap to the umpire and putting his hand out for the ball.
At the non-striker s end, Milind smiled. This could end even faster than he had thought!
JPL finals. Junior Patriots vs Junior Devils. Over 15. 34 to win off 36 balls. Sachin Rawat to bowl, right-arm over the wicket.
Chapter 1
A DEATH BOWLER CAN SEND A BALL FLYING IN AT 140 kilometres an hour. The hard leather ball, which can kill on impact, takes just half a second to fly across the twenty- two-yard pitch. Half a second to see the length and line, decide your stroke, avoid the fielder and hit that ball to the boundary. Half a second. The tick of a tick-tock, the blink of an eye...
To be a good batsman, you need the reflexes of a ninja, the spunk of a samurai and the judgment of a general. Every innings is a series of half-second battles and you need to win every one. One mistake and you could be back in the pavilion. Or worse, in the hospital ... BEEEEEEP!
Neel quickly jumped out of the way as an overladen auto passed mere inches from him and brought him squarely back to earth. The Junior Premier League was still two months away. It was winter and he was in Ranchi.
Every year, just when his friends were getting excited about Christmas parties and New Year celebrations in Gurgaon, Neel s mother dragged him off to Ranchi to spend a few weeks with his grandparents. While Neel loved his Nanu and Nani, he struggled to find things to do after the first couple of days. Sanju, the son of the family retainer, had also left home to find work in a factory in Dhanbad and only Ramajatan, the old watchman, was now left to throw a few balls for him.
Ranchi was a quiet little town in Jharkand, but local boy Mahendra Singh Dhoni s cricketing heroics had put it on the national map. At least now when Neel mentioned where he was going to his school friends, they knew what he was talking about.
Neel s grandparents lived in Doranda, one of the old, established colonies of Ranchi. The Doranda road went past the Auditor General s office and right through to the old HEC and MECON colonies. The only time it became really busy was when the Loreto Convent School opposite closed for the day and hundreds of noisy schoolgirls spilled out.
But the winter holidays were on in Ranchi, and the school was silent as the twelve-year-old walked towards the HEC gates. Thin, light-skinned, and a little short for his age, Neel didn t seem very strong at first glance. But if you looked a bit closer, you d find a glint in his brown- grey eyes, and a cast to his chin that warned you that he wasn t exactly a pushover. Quite a few bigger and stronger boys had discovered that to their cost over the years. But right now, Neel would have welcomed even those boys for company.
Life was unfair, he thought. Just one television set, completely dominated by Nani and her serials and Nanu and his news channels. No Wi-Fi, no games, no friends, and two humdrum weeks before he was back in Gurgaon. And then the JPL trials just a few weeks after...
Ma wanted toothpaste, and it was a long trudge that evening to the kirana shop. The local kids were staring at his sweatshirt-hadn t they seen a New York Yankees logo before?
Minutes later, Neel s mood lifted. The DAV School stadium in Ranchi, his favourite place in the city, was just around the corner. Once you were past the broken gate and inside the complex, you could see the centre pitch, still reasonably well-maintained. The dirty yellow walls across it bore the scars of hundreds of balls. The locals claimed that Mahendra Singh Dhoni had hit more than a hundred sixes in this stadium, his home ground, while he was in school. And the reason there were fewer marks on the walls was because most of his huge hits had gone out of the stadium.
Neel stood there for a couple of minutes, imagining the roar of the home crowd as Dhoni lifted another big one over the bowler s head. He would never have the power of the Indian captain, he thought ruefully, cursing his height. But he had the gift of timing, and his cool head and excellent coordination made him a favourite among his coaches. If only he had a couple more inches and wrists like that opening batsman from Heritage School...
Neel spent a few more minutes dreaming before resuming his journey to the store. The toothpaste was purchased, and he had enough money left over for a packet of chips. Quite happy, he was making his way back when he heard the rhythmic thump of a Cosco ball. Somebody was practising.
The sound was coming from the front of a typical MECON company officers flat. He turned the corner to see a curly-headed boy run in and bowl with the strangest action he had seen. And all the time he was muttering what seemed like the live commentary of an imaginary match, ... 11 runs left and he comes in to bowl to Miller, another brilliant delivery-that beats the batsman-no run again...
Neel watched quietly while this strange boy kept bowling and talking to himself. He was a few inches taller than Neel and looked athletic. But his action was what fascinated Neel. Instead of coming over his right ear, as any good bowler should, the kid was slinging the ball almost parallel to the ground-much like a Malinga. But he was bowling spin! It looked very easy to hit though-if only the DPS boys had bowled like this in his last match, Neel thought, he would have got a lot more runs.
Finally, the boy realized that he was being watched, and turned around, quite embarrassed.
Do you always bowl like that? Neel blurted, and then added more politely, I m Neel, from Delhi. Here for the holidays...
Sachin Rawat. I live here...
There was a bit of a silence and neither knew what to say next. Sachin picked up the ball and absently pulled at a loose thread.
Can I bowl a few? Neel asked.
Sachin nodded, and Neel came in and started bowling medium pace. He was not the best of bowlers, but he had a reasonable action. Over the next few minutes, he tried to show Sachin how bowling closer to his ear would make the delivery faster and more accurate.
After a few balls, Neel asked, By the way, where did you learn to bowl like that?
Sachin looked a bit flustered. I don t know, just from bowling to the wall, I guess... it just feels more comfortable...
They stood around talking about bowling actions and other bowlers. After a while, Sachin brought out his bat, and they took turns bowling to each other.
Suddenly Neel realized it was almost sunset and he still had toothpaste to deliver. Turning to run back home he shouted, Play again?
There was a big grin on Sachin s face as he answered, Ten tomorrow!
Finally, a friend in Ranchi, thought Neel as he hurried
home. And something to do in the holidays!
* * *
The day got even better when Nani told him she had made his favourite chilli chicken for dinner. And then Nanu allowed him to watch a bit of the South Africa one-dayers. Neel saw Dale Steyn charging in and swinging the ball at more than 140 kilometres per hour, and wondered how the batsman could even stand and face him. Dhoni, Sachin, the swinging Kookaburra ball were all a muddle in Neel s mind as he drifted off to sleep.
The next morning Neel finished his breakfast in about five minutes and ran towards the HEC gates. No more bullying Ramajatan to throw a few balls. He now had a