Tournament Arc - 2

"Well, that ends the 2nd session and the scores fir Team A is 180 - 1. With Travis scoring the bulk of the runs, with a 117 in 233 balls to his name.

Ron scoring 53 runs in 127 balls. It's a really weird form of cricket that hasn't been seen much.

These defensive tactics must really be annoying the bowlers. It's not just 1 side but from both sides. Seems a little cowardly to me."

"You might think that way Chris but this is the real form of Test cricket, the orthodox form. If these kids can't even get past such a challenge than these players aren't fit to be called cricketers."

"Well you were always a cricket enthusiast weren't you... Unlike me who just came here for some cash."

"Well we'll only know how things turn out at the end of the match."

...

"You!! I told y'all after the first session to not play such cowardly cricket. Yet, y'all still want to continue that way?"

What do I say to this guy? He still hasn't realised what test cricket is all about. It's called test Cricket for a reason you know.

It doesn't just test our cricketing prowess but it tests us on everything about cricket.

"I think I kinda like this form of cricket you know."

"I was wondering how such an aggressive player such as yourself was playing such a cowardly way. I see so that's the reason."

Hmm? I was wondering if this was his style of cricket but turns out it's not.

"Yaa, I think it's giving us a better chance of winning. And, although it might look easy to defend a ball but it sure as hell isn't."

"What? Are you serious? Are you telling slogging a ball is easier than defending it?"

"Actually, yes and no. It depends on the ball, it's really hard to slog a ball but, the way the pitch is playing out. I don't know, that mindlessly slogging the ball will do us any good. Let me be clear here. Batting here is IMPOSSIBLE if you want to mindlessly loft the ball. You won't even make a 100 runs."

"I don't understand, you should have played in all the pitches I have. You are pretty famous and if I didn't have the inherent ability to lead a team I wouldn't have been the leader. Are you sure? Is this pitch harder than all the pitches you have played at?"

"I can vouch for that. I've never come across a ball that swings so much inside. It's not just the pitch but the aur itself is against the batsman. I was expecting the ball to come just outside the off stump but it swung so much it hit the off and mid stump."

"What?" All the people shouted at the same time.

It might seem like alot but it's just average swing in professional cricket. That's test cricket for you.

If we don't tell them about the dangers of the pitch, and if the both of us get out now. They won't even reach 200.

With how easy the form of cricket and the flat tracksthey played in, Playing in these pitches mindlessly will ruin them.

Honestly without proper training and average skills you can't play cricket. It's extremely hard to play cricket if you haven't played much of the sport.

That's why it's not very popular among tournaments in the academy.

Because, not many play the sport so there are barely any teams. That's why they decided the Test Format rather than the 20 over or 50 over format.

Since it's exhausting to play for 5 days and play another game 1 day after the end of a game, we are given recovery potions after every match.

Even on tea break times we are given recovery potions but they are less potent than the actual ones.

And so The 2nd session break ended and we were told to go back to the pitch.

...

It was the end of day 3 and we were in a bit of a pinch.

After the 2nd session of day 1 Me and The vice captain got out one after the other which led the captain into the frey.

He managed to take our advice to heart and played defensively.

But, he couldn't adapt quickly and made 1 mistake which resulted in his stumps getting shattered.

I got out at 60, the VC got out at 122 and the Captain got out at 7 of 32 balls. He held himself in for quite a while but the others were absolutely useless.

All of them got out at single digits and unfortunately it ended in their defeat.

The first innings ended at the end of day 2 session 1 and the final score was 232 all out.

While the Captain, Vice and I did well, the others couldn't do much and got themselves out.

It's a seaming track so I couldn't do much with my bowling and went for 34 in 4 overs.

There was absolutely no help for seamers, The left arm bowler had pace and seam but he lacked stamina wise.

He bowled 7 overs in the first 15 and went for 12 runs and took 3 wickets.

The spinners were getting obliterated by the opponent team and they finished at 210 - 6 by the end of Day 2.

They did well to negate the seamers while being aggressive against spinners. I thought this score would be enough but the stamina of these seam bowlers is deplorable.

For them to only managed to bowl 10 overs each when the innings had 68 Overs. The fact that most of the runs were scored off of the spinners and most of the wickets were taken by the 2 seamers kinda speaks for themselves.

On the 3'rd day They played the 1st and 2nd sessions and managed 200 runs in total which is insane on this pitch.

By the end of the day they put up 433 runs on the board and they seemed to have employed our tactics perfectly and made their way to victory.

There were around 15 overs left before the end of day 3 and We managed to lose 2 wickets.

Both the openers were back in the pavilion, it's too bad that the VC was injured by the end of the innings and was currently going treatment and can't enter the game until the end of day 3.

We lost 2 wickets for 15 runs by the end of day 3.

We were in a real problem.

***END OF CHAPTER 45***