Wednesday, April 7, 2010

A Blessed Day!

Prologue

08 November 1999
India vs. New Zealand ODI

Sachin Tendulkar scores 186*
   Just 14 runs short of a double ton.

Since then, whenever India is playing an ODI, I feel ‘This is the day, that Sachin will hit a double century..’

* * * * * * * ** *
24 February 2010

The sun shone bright on my face, disturbing my sleep. I competed with the sun and continued my sleep. But the already ‘n’ times snoozed alarm rang again and made me wake up. I halfly opened my eyes to see 09:10 AM on my mobile.
‘Oh! Need to go to office..Another bad day in the making..!!’

I woke up.
Working days were no more exciting.Million dollar profit making multinational companies telling a one word excuse for not giving salary hikes.’Recession’.
But the work load was never less…..I was desperate for a change…

After having my breakfast, I quickly logged in to all known jobsites and checked if any openings had come.No luck!
Wipro has viewed you profile.One of the sites showed.
‘Hei, What is the use of just viewing my profile.Why don’t you guys call me up?’

I got ready for office and just glanced the news paper and got reminded that there is an India-South Africa ODI today.Good!Today will not be a boring day in office.

@ Office

Completing my lunch early, I came to my desk and opened 2 tabs in my browser.cricinfo and cricbuzz.
India batting first.
So, Sachin might hit a double Century today..
I stood up and called Karthik, another Sachin fan, sitting to my next cubicle.The intensity of his craze for Sachin can be understood from the fact that he even remembers the player Id for Sachin in cricinfo database.It’s 35320, which can be confirmed from the URL which appears when you view Sachin’s profile.
I called Karthik and asked,’Century, right?’
‘Ya, sure’, he replied.

I smiled and sat on my seat and continued refreshing cricinfo and cricbuzz.
Sachin was in absolute touch.He was un doubtedly heading towards a huge score.

He crossed his century without any effort and was still going well.The strike rate was so good that a double century was not impossible.

Over 37
Sachin not out on 147
One of my colleagues was watching the match in crictime.com.People started gathering around his laptop to watch the match.
Some others ran to the cafeteria to watch the match live on TV as in crictime, there will be 1 ball delay.
Me and Karthik decided not to go to the cafeteria.Last time, during India Australia ODI, when we went to cafeteria to watch the match, Sachin got out on 175 and India lost the match.Why take a chance?We’ll watch the match with 1 ball delay.We decided.

Almost the whole office was watching Tendulkar at the moment.No work, No projects, No deadlines to meet.Sachin has 'stopped time' here.

More than 20 people surrounded the laptop with live cricket running.My manager came to us seeing tha crowd and asked,”What’s happening?”
“Sachin’s playing too good.”
“Oh! He’s still playing?Isn’t he retired?”
“No 20 years not out”
“Oh! 20 notout, hope he hits a half century”, and he walked away.
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Over # 45 3rd ball
Sachin 193, on strike
Crictime started to hang and we refreshed cricinfo, but cricinfo still showed sachin in the 160s.
We heard a huge roar from the cafeteria.
Luckily crictime came back and we saw replays of Sachin flicking the ball away behind short fine and running a double to overtake 194 hit by Coventry and Saeed Anwar. Sachin now has the highest individual score in an ODI.
We clapped our hands congratulating the master.
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Over # 49
Sachin had reached 199* and Dhoni was hitting 4s and 6s all around th aground.
“Dhoni, who wants to see your sixers?? Give  the strike to Sachin”someone roared.

But Dhoni took a single off the last ball and instantly an Anti Dhoni community was created there.
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Over # 50
Finally Sachin got strike at 199*.

The bowler and captian were making field adjustments and Sachin was getting ready to face the ball.

Tringg Tringg
My phone rang.Unknown number.
“Hello”
“Am I speaking to Nithesh?”
“Yes.Who’s this?”
“Hi, I am calling from Wipro, Is this the right time to talk to you?”
The field adjustment were made and bowler walked for his run up.

“No, actually I am in a meeting, Can you call after 15 minutes?”, I replied.
“No, actially I’ll be leaving now.. This is regarding an immediate requirement and your profile seems to match.."
“Ok.Then you can call me tomorrow.Thanks..Bye”and I hung up.The bowler had already started running in…

We heard roars from the cafeteria and understood that history is created.Sachin placed the ball behind point and completed the historic run.We clapped and roared aloud contradictory to Sachin’s composed celebration.The office was not an office anymore.It had transformed to a mini stadium.
After watching replays of the 200th run, we dispersed to our own desks and continued watching the scores from cricinfo.Cricinfo was back by then.

Later, cricinfo editor Sambit Bal had commented that Sachin had not only crashed the deliveries from the bowlers, but also crashed some cricinfo servers when he was nearing 200, due to the load on the servers at that moment.He also said that he had ordered some Tendulkar servers for future…!!

Sachin has transformed the day for me, for millions..This never was a bad day in the making….A blessed day is created.

That’s the kind of genius Sachin is.He has provided one more remarkable day for all cricket fans.Whenever we dream, Sachin makes it true…
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Epilogue
Sachin,
We dream of the 2011 world cup final in which India is victorious ans we win the World Cup.This is a common dream for all your fans, all Indians....
Come on Sachin, we have a dream..Make it true...