The best 'leave' ever

It was quiet late in the evening. We were sure it will be the last match for the day. As our lord - the tea storage park of our absent minded speko - didn't really had any flood lights, the conditions just suited gundamani style of batting. Some how he played much better late in the evening when rest of us could hardly see the ball. Speko surely knew this, I am sure and that is why he always insisted we batted first. And today with this last over he needed only 2 runs to win. He had more centuries and half centuries on that pitch than all of us put together. Home turf advantage you see. Gundamani would love to challenge him in Australia now I am sure.

But any ways that day was special. Batting with speko was the sailor boy - or man sorry. Gundamani was standing right on speko's throat as sledging formed a formidable weapon in these circumstances. Two balls up and no score things seemed to be working. Third ball he played the trick and played in the vacant car parking area.

One run... Sailor uncle... sorry sailor man on strike. He was known more for his career changing abilities that his cricket abilities. From GMAT, to GRE, to IELTS, to CAT, to GATE and finally settling in merchant Navy, the Sailor man had inspired a whole generation of college going phoren thinking people.

Next ball, no run. By now gundamani and boss were so close in on batsman, any deviation in line would have affected their next generations. Penultimate ball and sailor gave into the pressure. Bold. Middle brick of the pillar. Oh we were almost mad. And so was speko on the other end. He looked more surprised than angry. And more worried because the next man in was the little mickey (see how clever of me to hide the mouse). He was known more to the professors than his classmates. There was pressure. You could feel it. But he was relaxed. Cool, Calm and Collective as they call it. I wished he had a helmet, he could have got hurt, gundamani was on his head literally.

Then it happened. None of us could beleive it but it happened. Right in front of our eyes. Last ball, one run to win. It was full out side the off stump delivery. And mickey did the text book stuff (as he was always known for doing). He left the ball in a perfect Dravid style.

The celebrations for that match didnot die down for next one week and mickey wasn't complaining. He was a celebrity. People came to him for advice on front foot leave. Ya, sure after all that was the best leave in the history of godown cricket. And it still remains that way....