1983-Facts and Fiction

Thinking in Punjabi, speaking in English

"Sunny bhai, it's high time, you get run."

***

India had ticked all the boxes for bad cricket in their third match in WC 1983, against Australia.

They'd dropped catches (Roger and Sandy); they'd missed run outs; they'd thrown awry; they'd managed a run out between two of their top order batsmen (Jimmy and Cheeka); they'd had a batting collapse. They'd lost by over 150 runs.

And the worst of all, they'd just had a nasty exchange in the team meeting afterwards.

It started with Kapil going into a disgusted, furious monologue about how the team had not even bothered to put up a fight, how Roger had played with an injury and messed things up at that-

Sunny, who had not played the match due to a niggle in his knee, came in at that point.

"How's leg?" Kapil asked.

"Better," said Sunny.

"Sunny bhai, it's high time, you get run."

A hush fell over the room-not that anyone had been speaking, but it was like they'd even forgotten to breathe. The look on Sunny's face made Jimmy wish he could convey to Kapil somehow to apologize immediately-but Kapil, oblivious, had already moved on to other things.

"And Cheeka, you have to control the anger-all the time, rash shots...why? Aur kya fielding chal rahi thi aaj...?"

Kapil was in such a bad temper that he had something to say to all the guys who'd played that day, Ballu and Sandy's fielding, Cheeka and Yash's shot selection, Kirmani's missed run out chance-the only two people he left out were, of course, Jimmy and Madan, though both had been pretty uneconomical that day.

Some of the things he said were technically not fair-Yash's shot selection was usually not poor, and he'd got out to a bad shot after a long time today, and Ballu was one of the better fielders of the team-so Jimmy kind of wished Kaps had pointed out his and Maddi's lousy bowling, too. The rest of the team would hardly take this preferential treatment well.

But presently he had other things on his mind and leading the list was how to pacify Sunny, who was gazing at the floor with a face of thundercloud.

When Kapil was finally done, and had walked out, the other started stirring themselves to leave the common room, too. Jimmy automatically made for Sunny, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

"Can I talk to you for a while, Jim pa?"

It was Cheeka, who never asked permission to talk to someone.

"Sure," said Jimmy, justifiably thrown off. The room had cleared by now; he sat back down on the bed he'd been occupying earlier. "What's up?"

"Jim pa, I'm so sorry..."

"For?" asked Jimmy, mystified.

"...for running you out..."

"Oh, that's perfectly all right, don't worry-"

"I don't know why I turned back to save myself when I realized the run wouldn't happen-I didn't even wait to see if you'd get back safely-"

"Cheeka...come on, we all know run outs are part of the game. We don't think and run our partners out."

Cheeka looked quite miserable and extremely unlike himself. Jimmy's worry due to the scene at the meeting suddenly found a source.

"Ok, what's wrong, Cheeka?" he asked gently.

"Nothing," said Cheeka. "Just not feeling awfully well."

Jimmy made him sit down-he didn't resist-and waited for him to elaborate.