If you don't know who Neil Johnson is, then you can gladly skip this post....and go on to other things in life....well, if you don't have that...then at least go on to other things on Facebook.....
This Neil dude you used to play for Zimbabwe around 10-14 years back I guess, right around the time I was growing up eating, drinking and sleeping cricket...Good old days!..Sachin going mad over Dam Fleming in Sharjah...that carnage by Sanath in 96 WCup!..dream debuts of 2 future Indian Greats in a Lords test match...and LBNL this Neil Johnson!! Wasn't he something...This guy used to open the batting, bowl the first over and also was a lightning in the field....there was nothing he couldn't do on a cricket field...Too bad that he was playing for Zimbabwe! All of us who used to discuss ONLY cricket in any free time we got...(Cricket Cricket Cricket!)...we found Robin Singh's puking habits a better topic to discuss than 'Trojan War', the English classic.(and trust me...he did that more than once on the field !!!). We all just LOVED this Neil guy! He was the ultimate Cricketer...no disrespect to the Indian Batting "Gods" here..!
Well, what used to happen was, whenever we played cricket...the guys who open the innings will NOT get a chance to bowl and vice versa. And for the others in between, the order used to be reversed....last batsmen will get first bowling...last-but-one will get 2nd over...so on and so forth..! That was actually in the Indian School cricket rule-book! And growing up under those weird rules...seeing this Neil Johnson do the unimaginable (open both the bowling and batting!) just made us his GREATEST fans!.. And during this period...A good fren of mine - Ashwin, and I tried to emulate Neil and guess what....we did the IMPOSSIBLE too. Yes, never before has anybody heard a story of 2 kids (4th Std) open both the bowling and batting for their team! I mean, it was like getting away with MURDER!! What happened was, we both were the best 2 batsmen and bowlers in our little unit, but obviosuly if we opened batting, we can forget about bowling in that match. Even though Ashwin was the captain, he could do very little about it! But it so happened, in one game when we were defending a very low total...He just will not listen to anyone, any threats of complaints to our P.T sir, and bowled the first over and gave me the 2nd! And as fate would have it, we won the match VERY easily...and from then on, every match was like this and no one could argue as we were winning all the matches...It was MAGICAL....But we both knew we were just one loss away from all this being taken away by our jealous and worthless teammates! And I still remember this 2 Neil Johnson period went on for atleast 4 months of that year! But it was one of the best times! Thanks to Neil Johnson who gave us that pretty brilliant idea that we can do both in cricket - even if were 9 year olds !! If he was born in this cricket crazy country, we would have had anothr GOD to pray to everyday :PP.S: The GOD angle is definitely a pun on all the fools out there who keep calling some 'cricketer' a GOD. And once again guys, pleaseeeeeeeee....Its just a GAME :)
