Not a damaging loss

Firstly I must apologise for not having written anything last week. There was an important game and plenty to share, but somehow I couldn't find enough time to sit down to write. The main reason for this was that it was a close friend's birthday week and my own too. Please don't rack your brains trying to understand the term “birthday week”. Till last year I was in the same boat, but now I know. The idea is that besides celebrating your birthday on your birthday itself, you do something special - from watching a movie to meeting up for a coffee - everyday of the week till your birthday. So the cricket in the morning and the birthday-week celebrations in the evening kept me away from the computer. Sorry about it.

Coming back to the first game of the season, against Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited from Pakistan, we decided to bat first after having won the toss on a greenish wicket. Opinions differed as to whether we should have batted or bowled first, but we decided to trust the efficiency of the Kotla track, a good batting surface. The decision backfired, and backfired big time. As you'd expect from the quicker men across the border, they moved the ball around and used the conditions beautifully. Cloud cover and fading light also helped their cause, and accentuated our grief. One of the guys, Imran Ali, got a rare hat-trick and we were bundled out for a meagre 134 in our first innings.

There was something in the track for the fast bowlers, but not enough to restrict them to fewer than 134. We did manage to get breakthroughs at regular intervals, and that kept the scoring-rate in check. There was something identical about all their batsmen, their keenness to go after every short-pitched delivery bowled at them. Almost every batsman in their team was a compulsive hooker regardless of whether he played it well or not. This, perhaps, showed the typical mindset of how cricket is played in Pakistan. They're an aggressive lot, and it shows in the game too. But whether they have the skill to match their aggression is a totally different issue.

It was heartening to see Ashish Nehra bowling his heart out, and finding a good rhythm right at the beginning of the season. If we are to repeat last year's performance, we need Nehra to be fit and bowling well, especially during Ishant's expected absence during the season. Winning the Ranji Trophy is about taking 20 wickets in almost every match, and that isn't an easy job. Another positive from our bowling effort was the way Chetanya Nanda bowled. He has developed a couple of new deliveries in the off-season, and is bowling with a lot more control. We've always lacked good spinners in our side, and if Nanda manages to take his game to the next level we'll benefit immensely.

We conceded a 132-run first-innings lead that seemed manageable since the track had eased out considerably. In addition to that we had the batting depth to compensate for our first-innings collapse. We piled on the runs in the second innings without much trouble. Viru [Virender Sehwag] started in his own aggressive style, but was back in the hut within six overs with the scoreboard reading 46, of which he had made 37. I, on the other end, was trying to get to terms with the new ball and hoping to make up for my early dismissal in the first innings.

For an outsider it must have looked like I was too slow because when both of us, Virat Kohli and I, walked out at tea with an almost identical individual score - I was slightly ahead, the handful of people present at the ground gave me a piece of their minds for batting too slowly for their liking. I found it a little uncalled for, but then that's how the crowd behaves - unreasonably at times. A few years ago I used to get worked up about such stuff, but now I've learned to see the lighter side and even laugh about it.

Virat and I went on to make big hundreds, but missed out on double-centuries. We shared a mammoth partnership, but not even for a moment did it feel like an effort. It was more like being on auto-pilot. Another thing that I found interesting about our partnership was that we never discussed about the lead we had conceded, or how much in front we were at different stages. That these thoughts didn't even cross our minds was perhaps an indication of how much “in the zone” we were while batting.

In the end the only blip was the weather. We were all set to declare, but before we could do it the skies opened up and washed out the final session of the third day. Ideally, we would've preferred to have two shots with the new cherry, once on the third evening - we would've put them in for 10-12 overs - and then again on the fourth morning. But that was not to be, as once the game stopped it never started again.

We lost the trophy on the basis of first-innings lead, but we gained a lot of positives out of this game. Apart from our batting on the first day, we pretty much controlled the game for the next couple of days. And had it not rained, we would've tried our best to force a result. But some things are beyond one's control; that is life.

I promise to try and be more regular in the future.