How did I do it?

Last weekend was quite a satisfying one. Mainly because our team won a great match against one of the best teams in our cricket league. And I, in no mean terms, contributed to the great victory. Now that I have told you I contributed, I need to tell you how I went about doing my bit to win the match. A beautiful catch! And that too a catch taken while I was standing close to the batsman!

To give you some background, I have always been a good outfielder. Meaning, I am a dependable fielder who can take decent catches in positions like long-on, log-off and third-man. I seemed to have the gift for judging the ball pretty well to cleanly take high catches. High catches gave you a lot of time and you can easily place yourself to take the catch at your convinience. But I was always awed by close-in fielders and fielders at positions like point, midwicket, slips. I loved to see Jonty Rhodes take sensational catches at point. So did Pointing and Gibbs. I always wanted to field like these men - or at least - take reasonably fast catches while fielding in close positions. I had always thought that I was not fast enough to take a fast catch close to the batsman. More often than not, I ended up being a spectator when the ball whizzes past me! But this was not the case on last Saturday.

Yes, last Saturday our captain took the ball to bowl. He is a medium pacer of good line and length, with just about enough pace to trouble the batsman. The batsman was a pretty good batsman - the captain of the opponent team. The batsman was known to be strong on the on side and apparently our captain had decided to make use of that pretty well.

I was standing in mid-off when he asked to go to the leg slip. Actually it was an unorthodox position - somewhere between the leg slip and the square leg. Anyways, the idea was to stop the runs if the batsman was to hook or pull the ball to the leg side.

When I scrambled to my captains reckoning and stood there I was thinking about how I had performed badly with the bat earlier in our innings. The first couple of balls went eventlessly and I was in my dreamland chiding myself for loosing my wicket cheaply in the earlier innings. This was when the captain bowled a shortish delivery that pitched on the middle and slid towards the leg stump. The batsman positioned himself nicely behind the ball and pulled it cleanly. I could see the ball emanating from the bat and flying completely parallel to the ground. I really liked the view and I saw only the ball and nothing else! At similar times before
I would normally watch the ball with fascination and react a split second late, by when the ball would flown past me. But this time it was different.

The ball was flying towards my right, pretty fast (I got know this from others later). I set my eyes completely on the ball.Without my willing knowledge, I began moving towards ball. And when I wasclose enough to the flying ball, I stretched both my hands and held on to the ball smoothly. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the ball stuck to my hand. I threw the ball high up in the air with esctasy and ran towards the pitch with loud cry.

It took me sometime for me to realize that I had taken my first good fast catch, at the close in position.A teammate commented that I moved some 3 steps towards the ball before I caught it. It all happened in a split second and I did not notice myself moving pretty quickly towards the ball to take the catch. It turned out that I not as slow as I thought I was!

But what made me take catch but not just watch the ball fly by me?
I don't know! But one difference this time was that, my view of the ball was crystal clear. I saw the ball, the ball alone, just like I would see a foot ball. So much was my concentration on the ball that I felt as though the ball was traveling in the air in slow-motion!

May be this is how great fielders take stunning catches in split seconds!

I sure learnt thing or two from my latest catch.
And I am sure it would take me many years before I can forget this catch.