My tryst with RDX

I was recently part of an office organized cricket tournament. My team RDX (Rebellious Defenders XI – why this name? That is the story for some other time) was considered one of the favorites to win the title. The matured team consisted of like-minded people, playing brilliant cricket delightful to the eyes and knowing how to execute a winning action. The preparations leading to the tournament was such that even though we are at our nascent stage of team formation, bonding between players were done, team spirit and winning recipes were blown and a nothing short of being champions were the mindset from the very start. That’s not an exaggeration, our first few matches in the tournament was an evidence of it. We truly dominated the league matches. We totally controlled our first knockout match too.

With the victories like; chasing 34 in 3.4 overs, 62 in 5 overs and bundling opposition to mere 37 runs while defending 98 in 10 overs were instilling a belief in ourselves that we could be title holders this time. But I guess, we were thinking too far. We were pushed to walls in the quarters and all our dreams were shattered. The loss gave us a reality check but there was no second chance.

We can condole ourselves by saying every great team faces this type of situation. Two great teams and their great matches comes to mind immediately. It befits our situation perfectly.

1.South Africa were considered the favorites to lift the 1996 cricket world cup. They had won all their matches comfortably before they met West Indies in the Quarters. But majestic Lara send them packing.

2.India in the recent times are dangerous outfit in all the formats. Under the able captaincy of MS Dhoni they were charging in WT20 2016 but hit an unmovable stone in the Semis of WT20, the Windies. Our favorite Indian team scored only 4 sixes and 16 fours in 20 overs while the West Indies team just wielded their bat and it went for a six, in total they scored 11 sixes 20 fours, simply saying they just stood ground and scored bulk of their runs in boundaries. Similar thing happened to us in the quarters, we kept on taking wickets of opposition while defending 84 in 10 overs, but it looked like whoever came to bat had just one thing in mind that is to score boundaries. 5 wickets fell but they overcame the target in 8^th over. We were in such hapless state that any regrouping or new ideas simply didn’t worked.

A victory is always sweeter

We can only contemplate a better performance next year but who knows what Almighty has in store for us. As of now we can cherish the memories and bundle our sadness into a container, lock it and throw the keys into the sea.