A bad outing with the ball - save the final rebound

A few weeks back I tried my hand at bowling in a practice match after a long time. And man was that an outing to forget. I've had my ups and downs with the ball like anyone else. I have had my share of 2 wicket overs and getting thrashed for 9 runs in the next match. But this frankly, is the deepest trench I've hit in my bowling career.

We were playing with a team called Hawkes, not that it matters, and I was handed the ball to bowl the sixth over of the innings. It was a cold morning and it had been raining until 10 am. A delayed start followed by our dull batting display in the damp conditions and finally I found myself gripping the yellow ball in my stiff cold hands. The moment I delivered the first ball I winced holding my right wrist. I felt a piercing pain as if an electric pulse ran around my wrist.

I was bowling after a very long period including no form of exercise in the past 5 weeks. To add to my miseries, I believe my hands were still cold and were being rudely shoved and awoken during the delivery of the ball. The pain continued after every delivery and I was not quite concentrating on how I was bowling. But I managed to get in some wide balls outside the off-stump that were edged to no-man's land. It was an escape considering that I conceded just one wide and 3 runs in the over - an over consisting of wide and over-pitched deliveries.

I wanted to make amends in my second over. I had removed the wrist band, artificially turned up the temperature on my hands and more importantly allowed them to get used to the ball. Faced no pain this time around, but the bowling display was a farce. I followed a full toss with a short one and a no ball. And next, I attempted to repeat the pattern. Quite frankly nothing was running in my head and I was merely pressurizing myself to bowl better without a strategy or concentration. The fifth delivery, the best of my deliveries that beat the bat was wrongly called a wide. That annoyed me. Manipulated by anger I dug the next one too short to be hooked for two. With the same tempo, I bowled the final delivery and man... was that a beauty. The ball was a yorker - one that would've even impressed Waqar Younis. A fast one that literally squeezed past the bat and took down the leg stump. A final rebound, a bewildered batsman and an inanimate me summed it all up.

After all... what is a cherry on a burned cake?