Dear readers,

We’re in Agartala for the knock-out rounds of the Vijay Hazare trophy. For those who are not aware Agartala - the capital of Tripura - is located in the far east of India. One needs to take a flight from Kolkata and fly over Bangladesh to reach here. We realised its proximity to our neighboring country as soon as we landed. The network for mobile phones, if not selected manually, tends to log onto Grameen, the telecom service provider in Bangladesh. So if you’re not careful you might end up paying a lot of money for making and receiving calls under the international roaming rates.

Personally, I like coming to the smaller, lesser known places in this vast land. Only cricket could have given us the opportunity to travel all over and get acquainted with various local cultures. There’s something peculiar about the houses (on the outskirts) in this part of the country. Since land is not at a premium the houses are built on a big compound with enough space for a garden. Invariably there are a couple of coconut trees in every compound and the boundary walls are made of bamboo. Those bamboo boundary walls – some of the smaller shops have them too - make a statement: we trust each other. It reminds me of the tradition in a small island called Nevis in the Caribbean, where locking your car is taken as an insult by the others.

The houses in the city center are just like any other across the country but the houses in the outskirts tell you a different story.

We were in for some excitement as soon as we landed. Imagine if someone tells you the booking you made at a local hotel has been cancelled and that the local association has booked our rooms in a different hotel. If that someone also happens to be the liaison officer, you tend to believe it. There’s only one decent hotel in this city and to be told that we were not to stay in that despite booking well in advance left us quite red-faced. We called up the officials in the Delhi association responsible for making the arrangement and even they weren’t aware of the cancellation. We then called the hotel itself and were duly informed that the booking was well in place and they were waiting for our arrival.

We were stunned at this revelation but it didn’t end here. We told the liaison officer what had happened and asked him to take us to our preferred hotel but he didn’t; in his defence he was just following orders, and he promptly took us to a dingy hotel in the city. We had to argue, and quite vocally too, that we should be taken to our desired destination, and eventually we got our way, but the whole thing smelt of conspiracy. Had we not asked our association and the hotel people we would have been forced to stay in a below par hotel. We struggled to comprehend the reason behind their lie. Perhaps the hotel we were asked to stay in had some arrangement with the local association. But we will never know.

The good thing about playing in a smallish center is the interest it generates in the locals. Even though the ground on which we played Railways was not the ideal ground to field in, we saw the lighter side of our plight. We were having bets on fielding the ball without fumbling, and a misfield wasn’t regarded with contempt but as a reason to laugh. To cut it short, it’s bumpy and rough. But there were people on the ground to watch cricket and that was a pleasant sight. Even though it wasn’t a big number, to people like us who are so used to playing in front of empty stadiums, even a few hundred can make a difference. The local cable channel had been advertising the event and, of course, the entry was free for all.

We have a three day break before the quarter finals and even after taking a day to recuperate from the match fatigue, we have enough time and days to look around and know this place a little better.

Cheers

The snow-covered peaks in the backdrop add to the charm of playing cricket in this mountain city. The hotel we chose to stay in was about half an hour's drive away from the ground and driving in that kind of terrain can be a bit of a bother for some, but once you set foot on the ground, everything else fades into oblivion. I must mention here that a lot of thinking and hard work has gone into building this facility and other associations can take a cue on just how much can be achieved if one has vision and the passion. The track is also almost ideal to play cricket on as it offers enough for everyone in the business. It won't be long before an international match or a national camp is held here.

The tournament finishes in nine days as the matches are held on every alternate day and if the rest day in-between includes travelling, it can get gruelling for the players. Contrary to popular belief, a one-day match takes a lot out of a player and the lack of adequate rest and time to recover can lead to injuries and fatigue. One might suggest a player-rotation system but with selection for the Deodhar Trophy, the one-day zonal tournament, at stake one can't afford to take a break because in the end it's all about the numbers: how many runs and how many wickets a player took.

As I mentioned earlier, we played our first two games at Dharamsala and the third match was held at Una which is three hours from Dharamsala. Since the hotel at Una is adjacent to the city's bus station we tried to spend as little time in Una as possible. The incessant honking of the vehicles deprives you of much needed sleep after the game.

Here comes the most annoying feature of our scheduling. After playing the third game at Una we went back to Dharamsala to play the fourth game before coming back to Una to play the fifth and final match. Basically we played three games at Dharamshala and two at Una, which is absolutely fine, but what irks me is the fact that it wasn't scheduled in a better manner, so as to avoid such to-and-fro trips that only adds to the player's fatigue.

Why did we play the third and the fifth game in Una? Why couldn't we finish our games in Dharamsala before shifting base to Una for the last two matches? And we weren't the only team doing the shuttling between Dharamsala. There were other teams too. Only a small amount of commonsense and understanding would have saved us the ordeal. But is anyone listening?

Playing the Ranji one-day matches takes you to the old days of playing matches within the zone and keeping an eye on other teams involved because only two qualify for the knock-outs. Domestic competition ceases to be a national event for these few days. Only when your team qualifies do you ask about the other teams qualifying from the other zones, as you would eventually be playing against one of them.
The general consensus among the players is that now that we have the Elite and Plate groups in the Ranji Trophy we must continue with the same format for the shorter version as well. There are always at least a couple of teams in every zone which are pushovers, but they help boost the individual performances of players, which might be enough to fetch them a place in the zonal side. But this fails to deliver a true reflection of their talent.

Cheers

PS: Please send the questions you would like me to answer in the next post. Tx :)