An Unexpected Friend
With an enormous target of seventy-two runs needed from mere thirty-six balls, you know you have to squeeze out every possible run regardless of the consequence. The bowler marked his run-up, came up to bowl, copying Mitchell Starc to some extent, and bowled a brutal bouncer to Shahzaib Ansar. The batsman shrugged off the bouncer, which landed several yards to the right of the batsman. In mere desperation and the urge to take the strike myself, I called the batsman for a run. With a fairly chubby physique, I am not the fastest one between the wickets and realized midway through the run that I may not complete the run with the potential risk of getting out. The bowler picked up the ball and threw one of the fastest throws I had ever seen towards the wicketkeeper. Without considering the potential consequences, a surge of adrenaline in my body forced me to lunge towards the crease, diving on a trough pitch with no protection on my legs.
The bails were dislodged, my head facing the pitch, waiting for the umpire to give his verdict………only to be relieved that I survived this close call. Excitedly, I got up to face the bowler, eyeing the midwicket boundary as my potential spot, until I sensed a burning sensation on my left leg. What followed left me perplexed and shocked. My trouser had turned into shorts, with both of my legs bleeding from the knee to the feet. For a moment, I considered the possibility of leaving the ground for medical treatment, but my love for cricket and the noble duty to lead my school cricket team to victory, motivated me to continue. Honestly, I felt as if I am Graeme Smith who came out to bat against Australia during the Sydney Test (2009) despite Johnson breaking his hand earlier. However, I am not the hardcore, physically strong former South African Batsman but a “softie” and soon realized the antagonizing pain was making it difficult to stand, batting would be impossible.
The walk back towards the pavilion was not one to remember. With tears streaming down from my eyes, I could not decipher if they were due to the pain from my injury or the guilt of letting my team down. Once I approached my team, all of them expressed their deep concern and said things which I never really understood as I was engulfed with my various thoughts. I just looked up, searched for Umar Cheema, and asked him to help me reach the medic. Without wasting a second, Umar placed my arm around his shoulder, helping me climb down the flight of stairs leading to the medic. The medic, who recited “ASTAGHFIRULLAH” after watching the gruesome injury on my leg, asked me one question repeatedly three times, “Son you thought of playing after this?” While I won’t go into the details of the treatment that followed and the nightmare of having Iodine poured on your wound, I can tell you one thing that I’ve decided never to slide on the wicket again solely based on the pain I had to endure during the treatment.
I was ordered by our Sports Teacher to call my parents and leave immediately after the doctor informed him that I won’t be able to walk properly for at least a week, closing the doors of a possible return in the next match if we possibly won this one. Suddenly I heard someone scream at the top of their voice and I immediately realized it must be one of my teammates (well we were fairly vocal whenever we would win the match) and I abruptly stood up from the bed and ran up the never-ending stairs to celebrate with my team. When they all saw me, initially they expressed some confusion as they knew I wasn’t able to even walk properly but quickly forgot that and quickly embraced me as we started shouting our favorite slogan “SAB KA DEEKHO PAPA KON? PARAGON PARAGON…….” Slowly, my voice started trembling, the smile on my face accompanied by tears from my eyes. My friends quickly noticed that, gave me space and forced me to lie on the grass. So, I curled myself like a baby, shedding tears, calling my mom, but had a smile that would not disappear.
The doctor rushed towards me, offered some medicines which were accompanied by episodes of our teacher scolding me. I have never understood why people in our society scold someone who is already suffering from pain, to be honest. Meanwhile, I got a call from my father that they are five minutes away from the cricket ground, prompting me to get up and slowly limp towards the gate accompanied by Umar Cheema. While telling Umar that this incident solely occurred as I disobeyed my mother’s command that I should not go to the tournament, we were stopped by a couple of girls from my class. Generally, I do not leave the best impression when I meet someone who I am not friends with and honestly, I don’t blame others as I do act like a fairly rude and straightforward person. They began to joke around and since I was not in the ideal condition, I gave them a bitter response which was rude of me. Reluctantly, one of them decided to snatch the cricket bat that I was using for support to intimidate me. The reason behind this was the fact that everyone at school knew that I was obsessed with my bats and did not lend them to anyone at all.
I requested her to return it to me solely because I needed it as support but she assumed that I was acting petty, not taking a joke, expressing an unjustified attitude. Driven with anger, she swung the bat like Ben Stokes, smashing it against my leg which was already fragile with the damage sustained earlier, sending me down to the floor. My day went from bad to worse as this was the last thing I ever imagined. My classmate showing her batting skills on my leg rather than on the cricket pitch? The whole episode of me crying and screaming with pain repeated but this time the only addition was the fact that I was shouting abuses in mere frustration and anger. Since I had earlier covered my injury with the sweater I had brought along, the girl was unaware of the consequences of her swing. Therefore, she got offended by the barbarous words I was screaming, fought with me, and left us alone. With this mere misunderstanding, I had managed to turn a person who wanted to approach me to become friends into an enemy who advocated this incident to back her claim that I am an egoistic, uncaring, serious person with a serious attitude problem (I was completely unaware of this).
*Fast-forward events to a day six months later*
The same person who once imagined me to be the obnoxious, uncooperative, and rude person, is now one of my closest friends at school. The journey to this point was not a smooth one. The time and effort it requires to change a person’s perception regarding you can be fairly long with memories from the past jolting any possible chances of trust and compassion. Rather than being violent and justifying my actions on the day the bat incident occurred, it was wiser to bury the hatchet and start with new ties and letting go of the sour past. I can proudly claim that till the end of A-Level, there were quite a lot of incidents where we took a stand for each other, helped each other achieve the goals we strived for and had quite a lot of fun on the way too with a paragraph in my annual testimonial dedicated to her. Sometimes you can distance yourself from people due to a small misunderstanding, and we should all make an effort to correct such issues with methods that do not include screaming at the other person why you are right and having the dignity to accept if you are at fault. Plus you should never underestimate the force by which girls can swing a cricket bat. Although we’re now at different universities and rarely even meet but share a mutual respect. Sometimes I wonder if our friendship would ever have been the way it is if it wasn’t for the bat swing at a sports tournament?
