Retired hurt..Still not out, will resume my innings soon :)

These days I have been eagerly waiting for the weekend, that allows me to play 2 days of tennis ball cricket - not a kid anymore, we play with the harder one. As I enter the field, I think of accomplishing only 2 things during the course of the day's play.

1. Do not drop a catch at any cost, pull of a brilliant catch if you get an opportunity.
2. Never misfield to concede an extra run, try saving as many as possible.

Batting well, scoring these many runs, bowling well, taking these many wickets have never been in my mind, for the simple reason that I do believe if any of these happens, it is a bonus and I have just been lucky on that day. I know very well that I haven't had the best of techniques in these parameters of the game. So, fielding is something that I have always enjoyed and am confident of not doing too badly in that aspect, there are exceptions though.

During one of those games on the Saturday that went by, I was fielding at deep square leg, slightly inside the boundary and we had a batsman pulling every delivery in the air towards that area. I did anticipate a catch to come to my side and the batsman did acknowledge my wish - ALMOST. Everything about is was as perfect as I had imagined it to be, except its projectile. It was dying in front of me and at that moment my commitment took over and propelled me to dive forward to take the catch. And the rest, obviously is History and in my case, it is pain. First, I didn't reach the ball before it hit the ground and apparently it goes down as a dropped chance. To compound my misery, I fell on that poor left hand Little finger of mine and when I rolled over and looked at my hands, I was terrified to say the least. Four of my fingers were listening to me and agreeing to move as I wished them to. The smallest of all, was quietly pointing to the other direction and had a couple of bends that I have never witnessed on them.

I haven't seen a fracture or a dislocation on myself anytime in life. So I really was scared and my expressions were petrifying enough to make others fear along with me. A couple of guys took me to the "WockHardt" hospital nearby and my heartbeats were going sky-high. Fearing the worst, I was looking at all that I'll do if the finger has to be bandaged for a month or so (if it were a fracture). To the curious ones reading this, It was not a fracture, fortunately. Many thanks to my fellow players, they were as concerned as I was - Special thanks to Manish, who had to wait at the billing counter for that long.

When the initial X-Ray was taken, I wasn't too comfortable placing my hands on the glass plate and it was a struggle out there. Largely due to fear and slightly due to the pain.

The left most finger
The one on the right, the same finger taken from a different angle

Looks horrifying isn't it? Am I not justified in being so concerned initially??

We showed this to the Doctor and he looked at it and came towards me.

"Yaen Aaaithu?" (What Happened?) he asked in Kannada.

Due to my limitations in the language, I was taking sometime to frame a reply within my mind.

The doctor understood my precarious situation looking at my flabbergasted face and asked me,

"Kannada Gotha?" (Do you know Kannada?)

I told,

"Swalpa Gothu" (Little bit I know)

and that was all that was required for him. He replied,

"Swalpa Saaku" (Little bit is enough)

and while talking he took hold of my hand. I was quietly yelling (Oxymoron??!!!) in pain and was trying to get my hand away from him. Little was he bothered about my movements and in one firm hold of my fingers and a shake here and a shake there, he set it right and said with a smile,

"That's it, Simple!"

I was pleasantly pleased to look at my little finger pointing skywards rather than to the one next to me. It took him approximately 2 seconds and he suggested me to go for another X-Ray to confirm if it has actually got fixed. This they term as a "Post-Production" X-ray, similar terms that we use in our day-to-day office hours. Here it goes, the post-production one and on this occasion, I was much more comfortable placing my hand on the machine than for the earlier one.

Wow...Now this one looks in better shape and more hand-like isn't it? So that means, no fracture, only a dislocation and one that has been set right to a reasonable extent. Fears allayed, thankfully.

I wrote this post to convey a few lessons that I learned during this process.

1. A dislocation sounds pretty scary, but in its simplest form, it isn't as bad as it sounds. It took them all of 2 seconds to get it fixed, though the resting process may well get into the second week. So, "Never panic" as I did so miserably asking each one around, "What could it be??". Little did I realize, "How on earth will they know what it could be??". I simply panicked and nothing else.

2. Never try your hand at addressing any such injury by yourself. There are trained professionals specifically meant for assisting us in resolving these issues. Utilize their service, though it comes at a (slightly heavy) price. Anyone of us could have done what the doctor did, but why take a chance? On a bad day, we might well end up aggravating it and pounding on our woes further.

Having said these, I am not one bit proud of having hurt myself while playing and this post certainly isn't being used by me as a mechanism to brag about. In fact, I am unhappy with myself with the diving technique I possess - Irrespective of the situation, when you dive on the field, you should get away unhurt apart from getting a bruise or two. I'll learn, maybe!

I Only hope that this freak injury wouldn't stop me from giving my all while fielding, henceforth. If ever that happens, I'll be letting my team and myself down.

In cricketing terms (for the ones who don't know), a "costly drop" is referred to an incident when you drop a catch for a batsman and he utilises that opportunity to go on to make a massive score. Similarly, the catch I dropped proved to be double costly. Firstly, the batsman continued to score big and torment my poor team members (I was in the hospital at that time). And then importantly, it made me spend close to 1000 rupees for the medical expenses, pretty costly a drop, right??!!!

And finally, the present state of my hand is as it appears in the 2nd photograph and not as in the first one. If only I was injured during the last match on Sunday, I would have been happier having played a few games. Incidentally, it happened during the first match on Saturday and there ended my weekend.

People call me crazy, I call myself Passionate - Either could be right.