Their Balls Against His Bat!

“The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.”

- Douglas Adams
  'Life, the Universe and Everything'

 Another curve ball comes his way, a googly, a yorker, a killer bouncer right to his head.

What is going on inside the head of the guy with the bat, is it about how or why or what slieght of hand the bowler did to put this challenge in front of him?

Where are the spectators watching right now, is it at the bowler who is standing right the huffing and panting close to the umpire sweating like a pig and out of breath?

Who is the bowler and the fielders gawking at wide-eyed, expecting some action next? Is it at each other, in their shifty restless glorious squinted faces that has been standing there under the sun since God-knows-how-long?

Why is the time standing still?

Why are they all looking at him like that? What are they expecting of him?

4 more runs with 1 ball to go.

The odds are against him, yes. But do they think that all this pressure they are crushing him with, is going to help his case in any way at all?

Don't they understand the import of this fraction of second in his life?

If he makes it, he is the king in tomorrow's newspapers all over the country. If he doesn't each of those papers are going to come at him with all guns blazing!

But still. At this very moment. He can't see any of them, other than that white sphere of pure untarnished opportunity.

Right now it is between his bat and that ball. It always was. He just sort of forgot that in all the commotion and hype surrounding it.

He got here not by what the bowlers, or umpires, or spectators, or the dailies said about him. It hasn't always been like that, no.

He got here by virtue of what he had within him. What he supposedly shaped up in himself in the net and training courts, chiselling out all the other worldly clutter that he had in his life.

It was now between that ball, and his bat.

All he could see was the ball leave the bowlers fingers, twirling and rotating in extra slow motion towards him. He could see its threads dancing around as the ball inched closer to him each second. It was going to swing left, intended to get him out by a edge of his bat caught by the burly six-footer giant standing right behind him.

He now knew what was going to happen, man was always capable of knowing. Call it the sub-conscious brain being smarter than the brain that you use routinely. It sees, hears, and notices more than you realize.

He now knew what he needed to do, man was always capable of deciding. The trouble always came with indecision, fear of getting it wrong all the time, not being sure of oneself, and worst low self-esteem.

He now realizes that all his fear and doubts was nothing but his mind telling him he was not yet ready to accomplish such a feat. He was not strong nor intelligent enough to succeed. He was incompetent.

He just realized. 'I was born competent.'

All that was left of him to do now. Is to execute.

The ball comes to him. He shifts his weight to his right leg. Holds the bat lightly in his palms, turns the  face up slightly. The ball is nearly where he wants it to be, he lifts his bat with everything he's got. Pushes the ball up, over the fielder standing at the slip, over the guy standing afew yards behind him. The ball shoots accross for sometime, landing just inside the white rope. One pitch up, goes out. Its a boundary.

Its four runs. They win, more importantly, HE wins.

So simple. Right?

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