Commencing the nets practice

This Tuesday, we kicked off the cricket session with actual leather ball practice in the nets. It was like re-experiencing the cricket sessions back in my old schools, which were held similarly.

Cricket had always been the main sport I passionately played and followed my whole life. In a way, this sport matured and evolved me into what I am today, and the instincts and reflexes I possess. The sport can also be credited for inculcating a team collaborative skill within me, along with a sheer sense of determination and persistence in life. For that reason, cricket has always close to my heart.

Even in Switzerland, the place I resided before at, holds many of my cricket memories. The most vivid one being the pandemic times, when my sister and I had nothing else to do so we resorted to playing and cricket indoors. It was a good bonding activity, along with some recreational time off the online schooling at that time.

It was cricket that got me through the toughest times in my life. My idol, Sachin Tendulkar, always motivated me to stay focused and be resilient for every setback I faced in my life. For example, my recovery back from Chikungunya and Typhoid (a time when I was hospitalized for 2 months), can be credited to cricket. Because it was cricket, which served the grounds of my physical recovery, simultaneously inspiring me to recover to normal health.

For that reason, I always have made sure (and still do) to passionately follow the sport, and continue to experience what it has to offer.

This session, we started with a few warm up laps of the field, along with few stretching exercises. At one point I could feel my glutes and quads stretch, and it was very satisfying indeed. The warm-up session was followed by a fielding practice, which involved us taking catches and fielding grounded shots to improve our ball handling efficacy. And finally, we did the much awaited net session.

I padded up second to bat, and brushed up my rusty batting skills. It had been a while, since I actually batted against leather ball. However, a few shots in, I was gracefully guiding the ball around: cover drive, cut, back foot punch, and even flick. Overall, I very much enjoyed the batting bit. When it was my time to bowl, I was able to inswing the ball, and vary its pace to make batting for the opponent much difficult. However, I need to work upon my accuracy, maybe reducing the wide bowled per 6 balls, to 1 from 2. I also need to work on my pace, because whenever I have my pace in my ball it doesn’t swing much.

For the next session, I aim to improve in my pace bowling. Furthermore, through this activity, we aim to build a school cricket team for OSC, which could match against other schools.