March 15^th at Mayajaal — The heat was reaching unbearable limits and it was easily past 11 AM by the time play started on the green lawns of the Mayajaal sports annex. The cones were laid out (for once by people other than Mama) and the field was admittedly smaller than the one at our usual games but why scare off everyone? The first game was Green Vs Blue captained by Sharmishta and Abhinav respectively which the latter won (4-1). It was ironic that team green’s unwittingly devious ‘strategy’ of outfitting some of its players in blue Tee shirts didn’t quite work the way it should have (For those of you who would object to this as against the SOG I caution you to old your tongues/ breaths. The marketing guys at Frost had all worn blue Tee shirts and it just so happened that some of them belonged to the Green team. So much for strategizing!)The games were 12 mins each or a race to 5 whichever came first. The next game was Red Vs Black, captained by mini tourney organizer Ranjani and of course the one we refer to as the ‘Building’ (or Vatsan for those who’re new here or just unaware about such trivialities). I don’t seem to remember the score (it was probably 4-1 in favour of the Blacks) as I was busy playing time keeper as my period of captaincy ended prematurely (sigh!) and I was relegated to other duties.

This was about the time that Team white and its captain Muthu, who was until then AWOL decided to show up. Unfortunately for those scheming/calculating souls who were praying for a forfeit due to the absence of the whites, the team had a bye to the next round. A triangular series between the Blue, White and Black teams was the next level. This was clearly the most exciting part of the tournament with fabulous catches and lay outs by none other than the ‘layout man’ himself – Abhinav. There were some surprisingly great defenses by the newbies from Frost (Gaurav, Vishnu, Sumanth). Bhupi’s feature throw was the one between the defender’s legs and this came as quite a shock to Ranjani who was left aghast! The Black team was better than the rest due to the fact that they showed up for practice on the three days preceding the tournament and hence held on to their catches and took time to make the passes.

We broke for lunch when the White Vs Blue (4-1) ended and some guy ran up and yelled that lunch was getting over and if we didn’t go right then we wouldn’t get food. Reason enough for most of us to drop the gleaming white disks on the green grass and run toward the buffet tables. With tummies filled, the teams relaxed on the bleachers to watch the Chennai Vs Mumbai Frost cricket match. The one team hard at work in the sun during this period of ‘rest & relaxation’ was team White. While the rest of used this time to laze around on the grass, Captain Muthu and his team practiced throws and if time had permitted, I’m sure he’d have made them do the flow drills!! I must say that I admire his dedication. The Blues and Blacks did run scared for a bit but then the hot sun and a streak of laziness combined couldn’t get the others up for some practice! The next was a high energy heated match between White and black (1-3). The game saw some tempers fly in either direction with some of us outsiders having to step in. Ranjani’s enthusiasm lifted the game with her shouts of encouragement for the competing teams. Since most of the players were new to the game with either a couple of days of practice or none at all, it was great to have them running about and not give up.

The final match was another fantastic and well matched game between teams Blue and Black. The score was neck to neck at 3 all and we the ‘amazing timekeepers’ (Sharmishta & Ranjani) had to extend play by 4 minutes with a sudden death play. This period featured some cool hammers by Abhinav. Although the game ended 4-3 in favour of the blues, they bowed out on point difference and the Blacks were declared the winners. I’m sure we’ll never hear the end of this from Vatsan for a few weeks/months to come, but Congratulations to them. By evening there were a bunch of us who decided to get some throws since the open lawns were extremely tempting. We were joined by the chief guests of the evening who amazed us with some nice throws. There was a CUF guest appearance by KK as well!! The evening ended with a prize distribution by the dignitaries of the day, the global VP for research and partner at Frost & Sullivan India. Ultimately (pun intended), the turn out was pretty great and many frosties have agreed to join the weekend games at Bessie. One up for Ultimate!