Out of the blue - Aakash Chopra

At last a good book which speaks about Indian domestic cricket.Credit should be given to Chopra for writing this book.This book mainly tells the story of Rajasthan, a team which was in the last spot in the previous year, how this team succeeded in their quest of their first Ranji Trophy.

First part of the books tells the story of Aakash Chopra's experiences after he was booted out un-ceremoniously from his state team,Delhi.Delhi is his native and he played for it around 10 years.

The below quote from the book explains his feeling :

"A player ,who has dedicated his life ,his game and his name to an association,is told that his services are no longer needed,by the press."

Then he moves on and tells his experience with other Rajasthan Ranji Trophy players.His narrative is sincere and observant.He explain details of certain aspect each of his team mates whether its their fielding,bowling,batting or their other skills.The diversity in the Rajasthan team was something i wondered. So many different background factors made these players play cricket.The sacrifices they had made to reach that level and their commitment to their dreams were told beautifully by the author.

The obscure rules and regulations in domestic cricket tournaments are harder to understand even for the players themselves, then how come the followers of the game enjoy it.For instance most of the Ranji Trophy matches are four day match, this really baffles me,its neither a single inning match nor 2 innings (as it is tough to bowl out a opponent 2 times in that short time, if BCCI wants to the team to bowls the opponent twice they should prepare a good pitch, not a flat one ).Whichever team takes first innings lead scores some vital points,the very bad thing about this rule is that most of the teams bats for 2 days or even 3 days and secure those points easily, which Rajasthan too did in some matches.There is no good fight between bat and ball here.

The author being a player gives the reader how the home teams prepares the pitches for the matches, very interesting.The planning before the matches specially after their horrible previous year and how well Rajasthan Cricket Board supported them inspite of the internal politics were told nicely.Well done RCA!.

Another highlight of this book is that information about Ranji Trophy on the boxes of every pages, very interesting.Overall a very good book.I hope more players will share their playing days like these in coming years.Im looking forward to read Aakash Chopra's first book "Beyond the Blues".

Here click here to Aakash Chopra's website