NO BALL

.......................within 3 seconds was the ball out of the boundary and another 3 seconds it took for the umpire to declare it official as a boundary. The score said 112 for the loss of 7 wickets. The Mumbai team had to get another 78 runs. It seemed liked the number one team in the country will be defeated by this years surprise finalist the team of Gujarat. Having played the whole season very poorly it was a great effort for Gujarat to come to the final. While defending a total of 190 runs the bowlers had done a great job to get 5 Mumbai wickets within first 50 runs. The big hope was now, Ramesh Korgaonkar. He was the opening batsman and survived the opening bowling attack. He was playing on an individual score of 64. He was now in a partnership of 32 for the eight wicket. It seemed like Mumbai was slowly crawling back into the match. They needed a run rate of 5.

But the real reason for which the people or rather media was so glued into television was because they were watching Ramesh. Ramesh a former national player who had to pause his career after allegations of match fixing. It was about 8 years back now, Ramesh saw the interview of his colleague who confessed that money was involved in one of the matches played against Pakistan in Toronto. He had also confessed that Ramesh was involved in it. Ramesh was dropped in the following series as the cricket board did not want the media to blow the issue any further. Ramesh then went to the court and decided to fight on his own. The trial took another 8 months to start. As Indian judicial is famous for its slow process it continued for over two years. In two years time a lot changed around. The colleague who accused Ramesh was already retired. The national team was a new young team. But Ramesh was happy that the board had no evidence against him. However the board was humiliated something that was not part of Ramesh's plan but was very well in the scripts of the press and electronic media. Ramesh was asked to start from bottom again. Board declared that they want a young team in the world cup, Ramesh aged 25 did not seem to fit into that category. Also they believed that in the last two years there was enough bench strength to replace the likes of Ramesh.

Another over been bowled by the Gujarat bowler and now things looked more easy and Mumbai could see a very good chance to win. The score was now 135 and Mumbai needed another 55 runs in 66 balls. Mumbai had kept the wickets intact and the 31 year old Ramesh had inched his score to 76. Just then the first bowl was bowled and unfortunately the partnership of 55 runs came to a fatal end. Ramesh saw his partner utterly disappointed which most of the times turn into dressing room anger. Hence he quickly ran behind him and gave him a pat on his back. Ramesh whispered in his ears "Good job, don't worry one more good stand and we are home......"

While he returned back to the crease with the new batsman who had got in, Ramesh remembered his days at home. He had thoughts of leaving cricket and how so many of his friends gave him the confidence. Even some of his fans who followed him in his very short national career supported him. There was a sympathy around however after a good performance of the team in the 2003 world cup, all the sympathy dried up for Ramesh. Clearly the new team was been worshiped like gods. Ramesh dropped the idea of getting into the national team. He also had to support a wife and a year old son. He took to the local club and made enough to see a smile on his wife's face. It was after being in club cricket for another 4 years that Ramesh got into the Mumbai team. Many thought the main reason being that the national board had a new team too. The new team wanted to do things differently and there first main decision was to allow all those players back in the main stream who were kicked out of false allegation. Unfortunately many of them were now at their retirement age and settled for money, alternative jobs, public apologies, very few like Ramesh took on the challenge to get back into the main stream cricket. Ramesh was now in Mumbai team and took very less time for him to become a permanent member of it. Ramesh had come to terms with his conscious that Mumbai team is the farthest he can go at this age. He also realized that enjoying cricket is important and not the level at which he is playing.

Another wicket, and suddenly Gujarat needed just one more wicket to close business. Mumbai was struggling now at a score of 162 for 9 wickets. They needed another 28 to win the match, but one mistake and it was all over. Ramesh had decided to not depend on the player at the non striker end and was hitting any ball that seemed loose. He had increased his score now to 90 runs. Since the match was played on the home grounds, Ramesh had the support from people. He knew what was to come if he makes the next 28 runs. His photo on the leading paper's sports page. But Ramesh also had his attention on the next bowler. Gujarat had asked their opening bowler to return. Mumbai needed to do the score in 3 overs now. The last partnership was rather slow since the dismissed batsman played a lot of dot balls.The first 3 balls were beautifully bowled and Ramesh was beaten by pace and bounce. The next two however were hit hard and both managed to hit the advertisement boards outside the boundary. On the last ball Ramesh even managed to take a single. Ramesh was happy with the last over. However he did not realized that he had got himself on to 99 runs. One run away from the century. The new over begun, Mumbai needing 20 runs, Ramesh tapped it to mid wicket, where it was brilliantly fielded and was thrown at the strikers end. It hit the wickets and the third umpire was been called for. Ramesh with him the last man watched the replays and then heard the crowd response. The replay followed by the decision and the decision was followed by the Gujarat team players taking out the stumps. The bowling team had done something even they did not expected at the start of the season.

Ramesh remained on 99 runs and his team lost by 18 runs. During the presentation ceremony the opening bowler of Gujarat was given man of the match award for his 5 for 25. It was clear that he broke the Mumbai's batting back bone. Just before the presenter could give the winners award they called in Ramesh and awarded him for a good show. It was a small award that Ramesh held and rushed to the dressing room, he clearly needed a shower. After the shower Ramesh sat alone in the dressing room. He walked to his locker and took out the small gift he was awarded. Mumbai had lost the match, he opened the gift to see a gold plated watch, and check of 2 lacs. He pulled his mobile and called, "Hello, let me know next time when a match needs to be fixed..............."Ramesh winked looking at the mirror in front of him.