The Substitute

Sometimes, in days like today an old incident visits your otherwise vacant occipital penthouse. The trigger could be a scene you are watching from a movie, a dish that you are eating, a photo that you saw or perhaps this .  How often does one conjure up an anecdote with a web page of a player, whose only claim to fame is being a substitute and effecting a run out in the 2005 Ashes. I am sure, this would be one of those rare occassions. Well let me spit it out here. 

The incident occured once upon a dull and dreary day in the office, at around 4:00 P.M. My cubicle mate in those days, Prazy as he is known, wasn't around. I really wanted to do something and then out of the blue, I realized I could play a prank on somebody. A prank call maybe? I have done prank calls in my lifetime, a lot of them unsuccessful, but I wanted to erase that blemish and had to find the perfect sitting duck/guinea pig. After long and hard thinking I decided to call Anantha, a fellow cricket fan, who perhaps breathes cricket more than  some of the biggest fans I know. I call him from my office number. The unsuspecting chap picks the phone and all I say is "Hey there, can you tell me something about Gary Pratt".   Ah! I thought, one of the worst prank calls ever in life! Who in heavens name other than me can do this absolutely monumental blunder. Surprise Surprise, the voice on the other side of the phone prattles about the player so much so that the Wikipedia article would have been put to shame! I pose as an editor of a cricket magazine and ask the guy a few more questions. Not once did our Anantha ask me who I was. I had a question and he had the right answer. After that chat, I had to tell him who I was and I found myself in splits. Dont' worry if you don't!, it was just funny for me and for a change enligthening.That day a truth dawned on me. A fellow cricket fan is not a stranger and so nothing would be asked about him. You could be poles apart, but cricket would bind you together. What started out as a prank ended up being memory that was stored in the dark corners of an empty brain only to be recounted here. 

PS : Ananthasubramanian Narayanan is a die hard Cricket Fan, who in addition to being a cricket fan is also a Photographer(spams you with wedding photos). Before I say anything more, he is a writer at sportskeeda and also has this