BHU cricket tour

This was an article written for my college
newsletter a year ago.Unfortunately the newsletter never got published
.So i thought i'll put it here.

The success story of BHU is one which very few of us will
forget.Firstly, for the majority of us, it was our first medal
for college..After a couple of tours in which we missed out
by losing close matches this was a sweet culmination to the

rigorous practice we had for a month after college began.

It began against JEC,Jabalpur.In an intense match with
lots of hooting we won convincingly by 7 wickets with
3 overs to spare.We were chasing a target of 129 in an
18 over match.I'd claimed 5 wickets but the stars of the
day were undoubtedly Yadav(45*) and Sudhanshu(35*)
who played sensible knocks at a critical point in the game.
The following game,against AEC,was a cakewalk.Abhishek
scored 45 and contributions from Varun,Yadav and
Sudhanshu saw us pile up 158 in the 20 over game.Our
opening bowlers Sahil and Varinder cleaned the
top-order and we had them all out for a paltry 52.

The semi-final was a game with a bit of history to it.
one year back,we had lost to YMCA Faridabad at the
same stage of the tournament on the last ball of the game.
This time around we scored 120 in 20 overs with good
contributions from everyone.Same team,same ground and
a similar situation but 1 year down the line the result was
different.We beat them by 20 runs.We had our vengeance.
We fielded extremely well and played with incredible team
spirit.

The final went like this.IT-BHU scored 145 in 25 overs.We
fell short by 3 runs.Blaming the partially biased umpiring
would be poor sportsmanship.I'd rather blame our batsmen
(including me)for poor shot selection at important moments
in the game.Second among 17 teams iscertainly respectable
but only we know how close we were from being the best.
Sport can hurt but life moves on.

Some things i'd like to mention which were essential elements
of our success are Varun's incredible keeping,Pradeep's high
catching,Sudhanshu's direct hits,Yadav's flat throws from 60
yards,Sanjeev's full-fledged dives and Yogesh' zeal.Our bench
strength deserves special mention for their tremendous and
untiring support.I may have missed a few names but we all
know that each and everyone of us had a vital role in making
this beautiful story happen.Sahil's leadership was inspiring to
say the least.He'd believed us at times when we had lost faith
in ourselves.You will be missed dearly sir