FRIDAY (26th January 2007):

My colleagues had arranged for a cricket match at St Bede's ground near Santhome.
As it was the republic day, they had blocked the beach road and also had re-routed the buses. I had to reach Santhome by 8 a.m. So i took the 21G bus, which was strangely empty . It was a luxury bus that had automated doors & cushion seats(a rarity in chennai buses), so i had a great journey.

I got down at Kutchery road in Mylapore and walked all the way to Santhome.
I reached the ground at 8:30. After searching for a while, I located our team playing at the nets.I got the shock of my life to see that they were playing matches using the cricket ball and not with Tennis ball( normally company teams use tennis ball for fear of injury).
I borrowed the sporting gear from my colleagues. I jogged for sometime and was called to bat in the nets. First, I was a little bit apprehensive as i was batting in full sporting gear(read wearing "Guard") for the first time.

The biggest minus was that i was a hitter and hence i needed my body to be free. But my Guard was making me uncomfortable. I initially had difficulty in batting, but as time passed by, i grew confident and was middling the ball well.
I batted for 7 overs and missed just maybe 6 or 10 balls.
After batting, i tried my hand at bowling, but it was a total disaster as i never bowled accurately.

There were many funny moments, particularly one, when one of my colleagues was adjusting his guard and his friend was threatening to pitch the ball right on his head.

I had a great time with my friends Lakshman, Suresh, Arun and others. I wish that i bat well during the next match and play a crucial inning for my team.

I returned home to get some much needed rest. In the evening, my dad, mom, and brother started off to Mysore to attend a relatives wedding. I went to the Central Railway station to send off my family. It happened that about 100 of my relatives were also leaving for Mysore on the same train. I was glad to meet my cousins Vivek, Kiran, Sridhar (Deepak) there. After sending off my parents, i went to Triplicane and stayed in my Uncle's house.