The Delhi Debacle

Hello!!! This post is based on my experiences of IIT-D sports fest where we lost 1-0 to the hosts in hockey.

After struggling with the ‘what if…’ kind of thoughts for almost an hour while trying to study Operations research, I finally decided to pen this post down. This post is different from my previous posts in the sense that it is my first expression of not-so-pleasant feelings on 'www.itsprabhavspeaking.blogspot.com'.

Thanks to the untiring efforts of our skipper Yogesh, we found ourselves marvelling at the lush green hockey field of IIT-D on the pleasant morning of 18/02/2010.My goodness…who would not want to slip and skid, drag and dribble on such a manicured field .That was the moment I realized IIT JEE 2008 was worth a try.

The competition (named Sportech) started off in the evening with a girls hockey match. Interestingly IIT-D does not have a girls’ hockey team. Soon after the match got over, we were left dumbfounded by the practise drills of one the other team. Looking at their skills, it was not difficult to predict who the winner of the tournament would be.

Back in the common room (where we were staying), a comparison between BITS Pilani and IIT-D remained a constant topic of discussion, especially amongst the first and the second yearites. It was n’t until water ran out in the toilets the next morning, that BITS Pilani was able to regain some of its lost glory.
Meanwhile, we were able to persuade the organizers to reschedule our match on the next day.

Our match with the hosts started with a rally of their attacks. Their repeated attacks got all of us in the panic mode. Despite rehearsing roles in a penalty corner for a number of times, the referee had to signal us to stop discussing the strategy to be adopted and set the ball rolling. Amidst such commotion in our minds, we succumbed to one of their onslaught. In the latter half, we missed at least 3 close chances. Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between lack of luck and lack of practise.Albeit, almost all of them were a result of the overconfidence of their defence rather than of our coordinated attack. The performance of our debutants was however promising. Personally, I faired rather badly in the do or die game.

The evening was at our leisure, which I spent in meeting a friend and a cousin. The pizza at ’Niurla’s’ and the ice-cream cake at ‘CCD’ were not an iota worth of their cost. Strangely, I always land up at such expensive eateries in my bathroom slippers. This time it was because my feet were too sore to wear shoes after the match.

Overall, BOSM (Bits Open Sports Meet) proved to be a much better managed and engrossing fest than Sportech. The cheering and jeering by the enthusiastic crowd at BOSM was conspicuous by its absence at Sportech where the junta hardly seemed to be interested.

The humiliation began to sink in only after returning to Pilani, with consolations of dear ones aggravating the feeling. The captain’s ‘treat’ on return seemed to be out of context .and if I am allowed to use a hyperbole here, the food too seemed tasteless… :P….

I hope that the Delhi debacle shall increase manifold our determination to win BOSM 2010.

PS: This post is dedicated to Chahat(our ex captain) and Aditya(our ex(xL)captain !) who were so sentimental that they virtually on their way to pilani from Bangalore when they learnt that we had made it to the finals of BOSM 2009, and who represented BITS for the last time in this tournament.