It was my first year at a residential school, I wanted to play cricket; I could not, not that I was incompetent, but that I wasn't out going. People who could talk and who looked big made the team in the sixth grade and only with the help of one of my friends I was the 12th man. I smiled when we lost.
Seventh grade was no better, the big guys still made the hostel team. I tried my hands at everything else, but was scared at hockey, slow at football, small for basketball and volley ball and too bad for tennis. For a while I just roamed around the grounds aimlessly, whiling my mandatory games hours in the evening.
One day I noticed a small number of people playing cricket with a worn out bat, sticks for stumps and a brand new ball on a hand ball court. I thought I almost found my creed, most of them were small and not very built either, and the built ones were the introverts.
We grew in number during the next few months, and since I was one of the founding members, I almost often captained a side everyday.
On one of the first few days of the Eighth grade, one of my little friends suggested making a Team B for every hostel. Faces brightened but making a team of 11 was a mammoth challenge, because the other guys in the hostel did not want to offend the biggies by joining a rebel team.
We managed to make it 9 for the first match between the blues and the reds, some of them playing cricket for the first time. I wouldn't forget that day, not because it was our first match or that we lost but because I lost my first watch, a gift from my father.
Before long we had 11 regulars for the team, sometimes even substitutes and a few ‘A team’ (the hostel team was now known by this name) members who played for their B, though the older bats and the sticks stayed.
Middle school was when we had our best times. After each vacation we managed to get a new bat or a couple of new balls from back home. By the end of Eighth grade almost all the hostels had a 'team B' and I had managed to gain the wrath of almost all of the biggies, because I stood tall and every time.
Personally we managed to strike a chord amongst us that kept us together even away from the grounds.
By the end of high school, the best of the B teams was already playing for their hostels and not surprisingly I was not picked for the hostel team. Many of the reds were playing for the hostel already; it only hurt when they refused to play for the Team B.
At senior school there weren't many people to fill two teams and eventually the B teams died out. In all the while it existed, Red B was arguably the best of the B teams, though the yellows and blues too came good in parts. Through the 3 years we had also played against some of the hostel teams, almost winning a few of them.
I was finally picked for the hostel team during my last year at school; I imagine it was more because of the loss in strength at the hostel than my own capabilities. I had a good share of spoils in the very few matches I played and the best performances were almost always from the once small, shy kids who started with sticks and broken bats on a handball court.
I had reasons to smile even when we lost.
