Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Gladiators w/o Zeeshan

Zeeshan Babar, or simply Z. He's been one of the oldest surviving players for Gladiators :) And today he informed us that he accepted a job at New Jersey. I wish him all the very best for everything in future. With the amount of hardwork he'd put in to earn the degree at Pitt, he throughly deserves a better job, even at these hard times. And I sincerely hope he gets a enthusiastic and fun-loving cricket team that he joins in Jersey.

He inducted me into Gladiators almost 2 years back, and encouraged me to bowl. I owe a lot to him for my success with the bowl in PCA tourmanents. I'll always remember the number of match planning discussions (and some harmless bitching) we did during the tournaments. 

While you are away, I'll miss you for your passion for the game on and off the field, and as a good friend. I hope you get an even better job at UPMC soon. Gladiators will never be the same without you Z.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Start of a new season

This year's cricket season for Gladiators is all set to begin on 3rd May,09. Just thinking about the game at the weekend makes me so excited. 

This year the team has a new look, though not necessarily a young look ;) . We have a new captain, with Imran taking over from Sameer. We have a number of new promising players - 
- Mansoor bhai,  a potential opening bowler and a hitter down the order
- Bhatti bhai, or Yasir bhai # 1, a potential opening batsman and a quick fielder. An offie who can be dangerous on his day (rare phenomena).
- Yasir bhai # 2, a good rhythm fast bowler and a very clean hitter of the ball. A quiet guy. He is sometimes seen talking on his phone on the ground. People have speculated that its either his wife/girl-friend or his business. I don't know, yet.
- Saad bhai, a post-doc at RI, CMU. A lean guy, but man.. you should see when he gets into his rhythm and gets those goli balls fly past the batsman's bat. A nice addition to the already brimming bowling unit.
- Arpit bhai, asli ka bhai. 100% sagga bhai. One of the few below 30 players in our team. I have always known him to be a cool customer with the bat, a shrewd and accurate leg-spinner and a agile fielder and runner between the wickets.
- Atishe and Sahil, the two latest recruitements from CMU from the star recruiter, yours truly. They should be available for matches from August, and I hope with they on the bench, we should have a very good healthy youth vs. experience competition.

As much as I am excited to see these new players in the team, I miss those who are no longer playing this year for us. I'll miss Meghdutt or MD - for his consistency with the bat and his cool goatie, Ihsaan for all the energy, talent and sincerity he brings with himself on the field and Zeeshan or simply Z, who might not play for us again after May mid, for the zeal with which he plays the game. 

We've already had two practice games and a couple of practive sessions and personally I feel in good shape to begin the tournament.  I have a new bat, an SG Sunny Tonny. So now I wont even have the excuse that I was playing with different bats every time. :)

The bowlers had a great practice game on Sunday. Our batting looked good, but not super-reliable and hence the availability of Snehal is important for our team's balance.

I am sure that along with these new players, the Gladiators that include Afzal, Imran, Sameer, Asghar, Kashan, Zeeshan, Mohsin, Ahmed, Snehal, Zoheb and myself will be the team to beat again this year. Hoping to start the season with a bang !!