‘Volleyball team selection is happening today at 3pm in the court. PT Sir asked for the names of students who want to play’ howled Sreejith, the boy from 8th standard. ‘9th A have already given their names, please give your names’
I was in 9th B section. I liked playing volleyball, not because I loved the game or anything but my school somehow seemed to give importance to that game (may be because all it needed was a small court, a ball and a net). I studied in PMS, a higher secondary school in Kotagiri, a small town in Ooty. My school was well known for its academic standards, barely for its sporting prowess. We didn’t have a football ground of our own. Volleyball would let me bunk classes and also I knew I could play the game fairly well, so I put up my hand.
Sreejith knew me, so didn’t have to ask for my name. He saw my hand raised and wrote down my name.
One by one, the others followed.
Lokesh, Demas, Kiran, Prabhu, Jagadish, Ramesh, Yuvraj, Radhakrishnan, Ashok, Samuel and Praveen gave their names from my class.
Sujith, Babu, Ben, Arun and three Vinoths had given their names from 9th A. Sreejith himself too had given his name (he was the only boy from 8th standard)
The selection was for the boys ‘senior’ team. There were three categories in sports across all schools – Junior, Senior and Super Senior. 6th and 7th std. were the Juniors, 8th, 9th and 10th were the Seniors, 11th and 12th formed the Super Seniors.
The last class that day was Math. So it was a double joy for me to go for selection at 3.
We all left class immediately after Amirta Mam, our history teacher left class.
19 of us were there in the court – excited and nervous. Some of them were jumping and checking the height of the net and all. I knew they were trying to be over smart ‘coz the truth is, none of us would ever be able to reach the top of the net, however hard we jumped. We all were too small, the tallest among us, Lokesh was about 5ft, may be not even that.
We were standing there and chatting in groups when PT Sir arrived with three volleyballs. His name was Mr.Dev, he had joined our school only that year. He was dark, looked fit and seemed to know something about volleyball. Mr.Sundar, one of the Maths teachers also came along, maybe it was a ‘free period’ for him.
‘All stand in line’ said PT Sir pointing to the end of the court.
We had a feeling he was not as good with his English as he was with his volleyball. We didn’t mind it considering our own standards of English.
The 19 of us stood in one line along the end of the court.
‘This is Senior team?’ he asked
‘Yes sir’ I don’t remember which one of us answered
‘Ok listen carefully. 19 of you are here, so make three teams of 6 each’
‘Sir…’ Arun wanted to say something
‘I know, one team will have 7 players, it’s okay, it’s only to check how well you are all playing’ PT cut him short
‘Shut up and stand’ somebody whispered. Should have been into Arun’s ears
‘I will select 6 main players and 2 substitutes from this 19’ he said
We divided ourselves into 3 groups and were ready to go
‘Ok, only underarm serve, no rotation game only still game, net touch, line cross not a problem’ PT sir laid the ground rules.
A ‘rotation game’ is one in which all the 6 players shift positions in a clockwise direction after every point.
The other two teams got into the court. I had to wait for my turn, for my team to play.
The guys were fighting among themselves for positions in the court. Sir blew the whistle and asked them to settle down quick, they could change positions as the game proceeded. After all, it was just for selection.
Ashok served, the game started. The ball went straight into the net
‘Sorry sorry sorry’ he said and got the ball back
I could see the guys were already tensed.
He served again, this time he could get it above the net and to the other side of the court. The game went on..PT was observing each boy carefully, he didn’t interrupt the game when they made mistakes, he just let them play and watched.
I watched them play too. Some of them were miserable, they were hitting the ball straight into their own faces by folding their elbows while receiving the ball. The serves went to the classrooms nearby instead of the other side of the court. They were constantly bumping into each other without calling for the ball and at other times, two guys would let the ball fall right in between them not knowing if one should take or the other. As time went by, it was becoming pretty obvious that most of them had come just for the heck of it, they looked like clowns laughing at their own mishaps. But a few, I noticed looked very comfortable out there. Lokesh, Sujith, Sreejith, Demas and Prabhu seemed to have good control, knew their positions well, hit good serves and Lokesh even hit a smash to which all clapped. I knew at that moment, he would be selected.
Sir stopped them after about 20 minutes. He asked one team to come out and let us get in. It was my chance to play, to impress and somehow earn a place in the team. I told the guys I wanted to play in the ‘setter’ position and they were okay with it
‘Setter’ is the one who sets the ball for the ‘spiker’ to smash. His would most times be the second touch during the rally. One team is allowed only 3 touches before they could send the ball to the other side of the court in a volleyball game
My first touch wasn’t great. Instead of setting the ball to Vinoth who was in the spike’s position, I sent the ball into the other side in the second touch itself
‘Dharsaan..3 touches’ growled PT
‘Yes Sir’. It made me nervous but I felt good about the touch though the ball didn’t go where I wanted it to. I realized my fingers were pretty good – which is of most importance to any setter.
We played for a while and PT replaced players from other team which left after the first 20 minutes. After about half an hour, after all the 19 of us got a chance to play for a considerable amount of time and show off our skills, the match was stopped.
He blew the whistle. ‘Stop..stop..enough that’s enough’
We all stopped playing and looked at him.
‘Go stand in the line’ he said
All of us went back to one long line like before.
Some were panting, some, including myself had our hands on our knees after a lot of running around
‘Ok I selected my team. Now I call names, that boys one step forward’ PT said
We were all nervous except for the few who knew they were not going to make it anyway. I could hear whispers, my eyes were fixed at the PT. During the game, I had realized I was better in this than I thought. I liked the feel of the ball in my fingers and I suddenly liked playing the game. I wanted to get selected, I wanted to be a part of the team
We waited in silence.
‘Lokesh’ he called out. I knew it
Lokesh stepped out smiling.
‘Demas’
My heart beat was getting faster. Did I play well enough? What if I don’t make it? Will he chuck me for not playing 3 touches? It was almost impossible for me to remain quiet. I held myself and waited.
‘Sujith’
‘Vinoth’
By now I almost lost hope. There were only 4 more places to fill and I didn’t think I could make it. I could feel a drop of sweat creeping down the back of my neck. I wouldn’t know if it was because of the game we played or of the tension.
‘Dharsaan’ he called
I smiled.
I took one step forward and joined the team. I looked at Demas to my left, ‘yess’ he said showing me his folded fist. I felt like jumping. I felt like hitting the ball into the sky. I was in the team!
‘Sreejith’
‘Kiran’
‘Prabhu’ he called out the remaining three
‘Others go to class. Thank you for coming’ he said
They all walked away slowly looking at us with jealousy. Some of them were smiling, some were genuinely disappointed. A couple of them even went to PT and asked something
‘No no, go to class its over’ he said
The eight of us looked at each other proudly. We were giving high 5s and were already discussing our positions
‘Team, come here’ PT called us
‘We walked to him together’
‘Congratulations. You are senior team. Kiran and Prabhu substitutes, others main players’
Kiran and Prabhu looked content.
‘Tomorrow we will decide positions’ he continued
‘Practice Sir?’ I asked, partly over-enthusiastic and partly because there was some more time for Math class to finish
‘Practice from tomorrow. Super-senior team also coming. Already selected that team. Only 11th standard boys in that team. 12th standard have to study’ he went on
The Super senior team had Sriram, Ranjith, Nishanth and a few others’ names I can’t recall.
‘8 ‘o clock come to school. Practice until 9.30. Then evening from 4 to 5.30 also practice’ he said
We all nodded, though a little disappointed that we had to practice before and after class, not during them!
‘Go to class now’ and he left along with Sundar Sir who didn’t open his mouth throughout the hour.
The eight of us walked to the taps, washed our hands and legs and faces slowly and walked back to our classes very slowly. The moment we reached our class, the final bell went off. We waited for Jayalakshmi Mam to leave class and then we went inside while the A section guys already went inside their class. We picked up our bags and the eight of us met outside.
We had a small discussion about what time to come and the stuff to bring, etc. Sreejith suggested we play for some time, it would be a little too much we thought and decided not to play that evening. We dispersed and set off for home, a proud lot!
The next day, I reached school at 7.45. By 8.10, all the 8 of us and PT sir were there. The super-senior team was also there. After a few warm-up drills we played a game, us against the super-senior guys just to finalize on our positions. After the short game and a small discussion, the positions were fixed. Sujith would play ‘centre’, Lokesh and Sreejith on either side behind him. I would be the ‘setter’, Vinoth, the ‘spiker’ and Demas on the other side in the front which we called ‘minus’. Kiran and Prabhu when substituted would play at the back. Lokesh wanted to play ‘spike’ but he was good at receiving the ball too, so we made him play at the back behind Vinoth so that he could also come around Vinoth for the long set and smash the ball. Sreejith could come around Demas on the other side for the smash. All of us were happy with our positions, I felt we were making a great team complimenting each other really well. One big plus for us was that, we were very good friends already, so gelling along as a team was not an issue whatsoever.
We practiced regularly. Every morning we used to come to school early for an hour’s practice and after classes for another hour and half. We trained hard honing our skills, ironing out our faults. However hard we worked, we all enjoyed playing with each other, we were having a lot of fun. We never criticized the other person, we only tried to encourage at every opportunity given to us.
Practice went on well, we could feel the difference in the way we played, the confidence and comfort levels after about a month of practice. The super-senior team too was coming along good, we regularly played against them and to our credit, we beat them several times too. They were always supportive of us and we became good friends with them in spite of the difference in age. They were a wonderful bunch of guys.
We got the fixtures in the beginning of July (2002). The games were beginning in August. It was conducted by the government across all schools in the district irrespective of the board, medium of teaching and government/private owned. Our first match was against the government school of Mettur, a town near Coonoor. Government schools were usually good in volleyball because the students mostly played the game in their neighborhoods too. The super-senior team too had to play the same school in their first match.
If we beat the Mettur school, we would have to play either Breeks school from Ooty or another government school from a town I can’t recall, whoever wins their first game against each other.
If we beat them, then came the big match. The one we were all looking forward to. The one we almost dreaded. The one PT had warned us of. The one against Stanes Higher Secondary School, Coonoor. Stanes had one of the best volleyball teams in the district. The boys were gigantic, trained regularly by the best of coaches and had a wealth of experience in Inter-school volleyball. On the other hand, we were far inferior in size compared to them though I always believed talent wise we were almost there. We had also been training only for a couple of months now and above all, this was the first time we ever were going out of school to play another school. We were sure they’ll easily proceed to the third round, so it was only a question of us qualifying to face them.
‘If you get yourselves to play Stanes, you’ve done well’ said PT ‘against them the result won’t matter, you just give your best’ he said
We had a little more than a month to get ready. As the day closed by, we sought permission from the principal and began practicing during class hours too. It was no more about bunking classes but winning matches. We were slowly improving on our basics, jumping higher, calling out better, serving flatter and smashing harder. An air of confidence had crept into the team and it was becoming easier to believe in ourselves, that we were capable of something special.
There was one more week to go, our jerseys and shorts had arrived. Yellow jersey and black shorts. I got the number ‘7’ which I had requested for. We stayed longer hours at school, we practiced for about 5 hours every day. We were diving around, sweating it out..everybody seemed to be pumped up and ready for the challenge.
It was the day before the game. We took the whole day off class but trained only for a couple of hours. We took it easy going over all our plays carefully. We were ready to go!
Mrs. Jessie Sampath, our principal met us that evening. She spoke for a few minutes encouraging us and we all prayed together.
August 5, 2002.
Both the teams had arrived at school by 7.30. Our matches were scheduled at 10.30 and Mettur was a 90 minute travel from our school. We had planned to reach there early, have some breakfast and warm ourselves up a bit before the games begin.
We left in the school bus along with PT Sir and Sundar Sir. This time Sundar sir was full of positive energy talking to us throughout the journey. We had never seen him in class like that.
We reached Mettur at around 9. It was a bright day with good sunshine which was unusual in August. We had breakfast and went to the changing rooms they had allotted us, one of the class rooms of the government school. We changed to our gear and got on to the ground for some last minute warm up. The super seniors had their game first. We thought we could get a fair idea of our opponents from that match.
All the games were 3 setters, 25 points for the first 2 sets and if the match went to the third set, it would be played for only 15 points.
We all sat down in the audience as the match began. Our guys started well but as the match progressed, the home team turned out to be too strong. It was a good match but eventually the Mettur boys beat our super seniors in 3 sets. They were utterly disappointed but they knew they lost to a quality team.
It was our turn now. We were a little nervous looking at our seniors lose, but were confident enough to brush aside those fears. We got into the court. The whole town of Mettur had gathered by now to cheer their team. We had our teachers and our seniors cheering for us. The ‘senior’ outfit of Mettur too looked pretty groomed. They were doing their last minute practice hits which actually scared us a bit. The six of us told ourselves to remain calm and play our game how we knew it.
Mettur won the toss and asked us to serve. After one last huddle, we took our positions. Sreejith took the first serve. It was a good flat upper arm serve and we were already acknowledging it yelling ‘service daa’. But the opposition received it well and their smasher hit a strong smash which Sujith couldn’t control, the ball went flying out of the court from his hand. We all rushed to him cheering him for the effort and got ready getting back to our positions to face their serve. Sujith received the serve well, I set the ball up for Vinoth who jumped in the air and hit the ball into the net.
2 – 0.
The opposition guys gathered some momentum and the score line stood at 12 – 4 in favor of them when we took our first time-out. PT asked us to calm down
‘It’s still in your hands, stay calm, just break one serve and the set is ours’ he said
It was their serve.
A flat serve came speeding across the net which I thought had won the point itself, I didn’t even expect the ball to come back to me at the first touch. But Sreejith at the back did something spectacular. He threw himself to his right for an unbelievable take and everybody screamed in excitement. The ball lobbed high in the air and I called for the second touch. Vinoth and Demas were getting ready for the smash calling out for it and the blockers in the opposition were gearing themselves to block Vinoth and Demas, whoever took the shot. I lifted the ball high..both Vinoth and Demas jumped up along with the blockers of the opposition, the ball sailed high above Vinoth and past him who had no clue what was going on..but nobody had noticed Lokesh running around Vinoth from the back, he timed his run perfectly, jumped high in the air to meet the ball just above the net and let out a thunderous smash across which hit one of the opposition players right on his face. We all jumped in joy and ran to Lokesh and hugged him. I got my hugs too for the deceiving lift.
‘Thanks Dharshaa’ Lokesh said smiling
And from that moment on, the Mettur boys just couldn’t catch us. We took them on a roller coaster ride and enjoyed every bit of it. Vinoth was neat with his smashes, Demas was ruthless with his own. Sujith was sublime with his first touch and Lokesh and Sreejith were flying around at the back digging every ball out. We suddenly realized how good we were. Everybody played to their potentials and we won the game in straight sets. We shook hands with the opposition team and their coach. The coach, an elderly man congratulated us for our efforts. We felt good about it.
The second match turned out to be easier than the first. We played very well again and beat Breeks by a good margin. We were beginning to anticipate each other’s movement well and we were forming a strong unit.
This time, the celebrations were short lived though, as we knew the time had come. Stanes had beaten their previous two teams rather too easily and were in prime touch was the word around though we hadn’t seen them play yet. But we knew this was the moment we had worked so hard for. The first two wins were just means of getting here. This match against Stanes was the ultimate challenge and we knew we were ready for it. The match was at 3. We had lunch and rested for a while trying to calm ourselves down. We were a bit tired from the first two games but that was no excuse at all. We had to give it everything we had if there was any chance of getting close to them. The match was nearing.
Around 2.30 we caught our first sight of the Stanes team. They had set out to warm up just like us. They were considerably taller than us and stronger. One boy in particular by the name Seeshan was a monster, and their main smasher. Watching them practicing for a while sent chills up our spines but we were determined to play our games to the highest levels possible. One thing the six of us knew was that we were not going to go down without a fight.
It was time for the match. We stood in a huddle in the centre of the court. By now, the huge ground in which the court was set up was full. Players from other schools and locals from the town had all gathered there.
‘May be they had heard of us winning the first two games and obviously they knew of Stanes. So they were expecting a high intensity match’ I thought to myself.
But this time, the crowd was on our side. They ignored the ‘big boys’ from Stanes and were cheering for us. Our seniors sat at the top of the slope on one side of the ground and were screaming at the top of their voices.
Stanes won the toss and asked us to serve.
We took our positions clapping and cheering up each other. Lokesh took the serve this time. It was a weak serve which sailed high above the net. It was acceptable considering the amount of tension and nervousness we were in. The ‘centre’ in the opposition took it easily, the setter lifted the ball high, Seeshan jumped, me and Demas jumped together in an attempt to block his shot and he hit the ball with all his might..we were nowhere near his hands. The ball struck the ground right in between me and Sujith almost setting the ground in vibrations and bounced high up in the air. The crowd stood in stunned silence. I stood there facing the 5 of my team mates. I would never forget the look on their faces at that moment. A look of disbelief..a look of horror. Not one single soul in the whole ground at that moment thought we had any chance of winning the game.
We braced ourselves quickly and swore that we won’t give up. Seeshan’s mauling went on unstopped. They won the first set 25 – 10.
We came out of the court with our heads hung. We could sense pity in the air, for us. I could even notice some of the audience making their way out. They knew it was over. We remained silent drinking our water and energy drinks.
PT sir remained silent.
‘It’s okay you’ll tried your best. We knew they were going to be strong’ Sundar sir tried to console
‘It’s still not over’ said Demas, ‘we can still win it if we find a way to stop Seeshan’ he said. We all looked at him and he went on explaining what he had in mind.
We had almost missed the fact that though the whole Stanes team was strong, Seeshan was their only smasher.
‘And he can smash the ball only if it’s set properly to him’ I said and everybody agreed in unison
So our only way out was to make sure the ball was not set for him to smash, which in turn meant that the first touch shouldn’t go cleanly to their setter.
We sensed we had a plan. We started to cheer each other up. We had to make sure not one among us lost hope. The six of us spoke together for another 3 minutes and we had our plan in place. The plan was this – we were not going to try to smash the ball at all. All we were going to do was to drop the ball in between them, be it on the first, second or third touch and make them chase the ball. The setter should never get the ball cleanly to lift, we had to disrupt their rhythm and work Seeshan up.
The break was over and we all rushed into the court with new found energy. Something told us this was going to work and we were going to play like our lives depended on it.
It was their turn to serve and this time I could proudly declare that the breakthrough was provided by me. It was a flat serve and Sujith received it well and lobbed it high for me. Just like every other time, Vinoth and Demas were getting ready to jump as Lokesh and Sreejith were running around them from the back for their shot. The blockers in the opposition including Seeshan were setting themselves up for the block. The ball was still in the air as I was positioning myself to set the ball when I noticed Seeshan had already come to the net in a bid to block the smash. I waited until the last moment until the ball landed on my fingers and gently dropped the ball into the vacant position of Seeshan’s. This was utterly unexpected and he tried to get back to his position...he let out a huge grunt as he bent and tried to fetch the ball but in vain..the ball fell to the floor and we had won the point. First blood!
My team mates rushed to me in celebration.
Lokesh and Vinoth were not smashing the ball anymore. They were pushing it hard across in between the back and the centre, the minus and the back, the smasher and the centre and the Stanes boys were soon running around chasing the ball all over the court. Demas too was doing a great job jumping high and dropping the ball into vacant areas. Meanwhile we were throwing ourselves all over the court digging out balls which were otherwise unreachable. This may sound like ‘absolute ranting’ but then it was just what happened. We played like we were possessed. We won the second set 25 – 19.
A huge cheer went across the ground, we could see that the ground was full again. Now we sensed a win was not out of reach. Our plan was working. Though Stanes would come prepared in the third set, if we played as well as we did in the second set, we were confident of winning it.
The third set turned out to be nothing different. Stanes lost the plot completely. Seeshan had decided to do everything by himself, he was running around for every ball and making a mess out of it. He was running out of energy. And we were relentless..at one point, Sreejith and Sujith were sending the ball back in the first touch itself which completely disrupted the flow of their game. Towards halfway in the third set, Seeshan was literally gasping for air not able to even jump anymore. We were drained completely ourselves but were in no mood to relax. The crowd was cheering every touch. There were hands patting us on the back whenever our players stepped out of the line to take the serve. We played unbelievably well as a team always looking out for each other and soon, the match was over.
We won the third set 15 – 7 and won the match. We jumped and screamed and celebrated. We were battered and bruised playing on the mud court but the joy of victory over the ‘unbeatable team’ dwarfed all the pain. We just couldn’t hide our joy. The crowd rushed into the ground to congratulate us, we felt like real winners, like champions. Our seniors, PT sir and Math Sir were there cheering for us, ever proud of us. It was a moment to cherish.
We went back home that night feeling happier than ever before. The news had spread like wildfire at school. The next day morning at the assembly, the Principal called us to the front and announced our feat to the whole school. From then on, everybody seemed to know us in school, we had become popular overnight.
We went on to win the divisional level in ‘senior’ category inter-school volleyball. We also represented our school until twelfth standard winning and losing several games but that one win against Stanes will remain etched in our memory for a long time to come.
I loved my team.
I loved my school.
I still do!
What a lovely chronicle!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDelete