Make it Real, not Fantasy

So I decided to stack up a team. There were points on offer. by ESPN. It has been long since I have made a point. Hence the excitement.

I didn’t pay too much heed to the limited and scarce number of transfers that I had in my bag, instead, the strategy suggested by Nicklaus, my alter ego was slam the minnows hard. And I listened. Unforeseen travel plans stained the original blueprint. I was to have no access to the Internet for a good four days. In a desperate bid to amass the points, I packed my team with South Africans and Pakistanis. Eleven of them in all. The two were scheduled to play against a couple of ordinary minnows on the same day. I requested Sharandeep to log into my account and adjust my captains accordingly. Afridi in the morning and AB post lunch. Both Afridi, and AB slammed Man of the Match performances. I had made my point. I have nothing to prove to the world anymore. I had stacked up the points and ranked 1798 in the world. And that remains my highest ranking in anything that I have attempted in life until this point in time.

The following week, India was scheduled to play a couple of ordinary minnows, and England on the weekend. Three games in seven days. Nicklaus insisted that I stack Indians. I did. Yuvraj Singh was the unanimous choice for captain because he, like Ganguly can score the runs and knock the wickets only against ordinary opposition. And how! Fifties and bags of wickets! And successive Man of the Match awards. Yuvraj had repaid my faith in him. I retained him in my team and retained his captaincy services in the game against the West Indies. He was Man of the Match then again.

In the mean time, Afridi and Watson added points to my tally in the background. My focus was on Australia though. They’d be playing a couple of very ordinary minnows, and Pakistan on the weekend. In all, three games in the week. I stacked them in, all six of them. Much to my disappointment, they didn’t stack up the points as expected. Nicklaus had failed me.

And I was under the impression that I had to walk into the quarter finals with my final XI. And that I’d have all of 10 transfers thereon. On the day, I found out that I had unlimited transfers available until the start of the first quarter final. A complete failure of strategy, a strategy that had seared me up to greatness has come crumbling down.

Nevertheless, I walk into the quarter finals stacked like this:

I had however topped all of the two leagues that I am listed in for most of the four weeks of the league stages of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. I finish this round on 11161 points, ranked 4289 on the world stage, my second highest ranking in everything that I have attempted in life thus far. I’m now second on each of those two leagues. Sharandeep has taken over.

I had entrusted my faith in S Ajmal, R Ashwin and S Akhtar. These gentlemen however didn’t play any of the games that I’d picked them for. I ban these gentlemen from my future teams. R Ashwin, however will be under a period of probation. He will be considered for future selections if he abstains from fish. Dhoni however, receives a life ban for not playing for the crowds. At the end of the day, the players play for their country, to repay the faith of the national selectors, their team etc. but most importantly, they play for those who’ve picked them in their ESPN Fantasy Cricket team.