This is a yet another teenage feel good story. Mike Jackson comes from a family with rich cricketing tradition. Several of his brothers are good enough to play first class cricket. His coach believes that he is even better than all of them!
When Mike becomes a teenager, he graduates from the small prep school to Wrykyn, a large public school. The name Jackson is well known since all his older brothers studied at Wrykyn and all of them played for the school team and won accolades. Mike's prodigious cricketing skills is obvious on the very first day when he fearlessly faces the captain and fast bowler and earns his respect. Within a week he is playing for the first eleven team in a very important match against MCC and scores twenty-three not out in a crisis situation and ensures a drawn match.
Soon success goes to his head and he behaves rather erratically. It leads him to miss early morning fielding practice which marks him as a slacker. The captain hears about it and cuts him from the team.
The finale of the story involves the most important match of the year against arch-rival Ripton. The Wrykyn team is depleted by the loss of two key player. Wyatt is withdrawn (euphemism for dismissal) from school, due to the school's disapproval of his practice of shooting cats with a air gun late in the night. Another key batman is dropped when it is found that he too left his building for a late night party in the room of another student. The captain has no choice but to include Mike.
Chasing a modest Ripton total of 160 odd runs, Wrykyn is reduced to 0 for1, 1 for 2, 41 for 4 and 54 for 5. Into the breach steps Mike. He scores 83 not out and steers his team to victory with only tailenders for support!
No comments:
Post a Comment