A Cricket Match 

The physical prowess of a nation is judged more from its performance in sports than from anything else. It is a pity that India a country of more than 85 crores, has not been able to win a single medal at the Barcelona (1992) Olympics, while even small countries like Cuba and even Surinam have won one or more medals. After all, there must be something wrong with us and with our sports. It is thus all the more imperative that more attention is paid to sports. 

I am a cricket fan, though myself not much of a player. Last Sunday, there was played on our school grounds an interesting cricket match between the teams of our school and local government school. The play-ground had already been well-prepared a day before by our physical education teacher with the help of some boys and peons. 

As the umpires and players of both the teams went to the field, there was a loud clapping of hands by the spectators. Our team won the toss and decided to bat first. 

Mohan and Sohan are the best cricketers of our school. Krishan, the captain, asked them to open the first innings. They always prove ideal openers in all matches. The captain of the other team was no novice. he arranged the field apparently in a fool-proof manner and asked his team's best bowler, Karim, to bowl the first ball. 

Karim, indeed, seemed to be a magician. He was a pacer. His ball flew almost invisibly towards the wickets. But Mohan had faced such situations already well. He was an experienced batsman. He hit the ball so hard that it flew across the boundary with the very first strike. There was a loud clap-ping from our side with occasional shouts of "Hurrah!" and "Bravo! Well done". 

Now Karim became more conscious. He threw the ball more meticulously. Now he yielded very few runs for the next fifteen minutes. Mohan was bowled out at just 30 runs. He was replaced by Deepak. Most unexpectedly, the latter played so well that the score soon reached 102. At about noon it was 321 for 7. Our captain declared the match. 

Now the opponents began to bat. But they were soon all out at 285. In the second innings we scored 302 runs, while the other team could score only 241 runs. Thus we won the match by a big margin.