JYPL- Discovering God Through Cricket !

"English invented cricket because they found no other way of experiencing eternity",someone rightly said this about cricket specially test cricket.I am here to share about JYPL-Jesus Youth Premier League , a cricket tourney for JY in Bangalore.Here is a brief account of what happened on that glorious day,29th of June,Sunday,Christ School Ground.

The Day was cloudy as it often gets in Bangalore and more cloudy if seen through the eyes of each and every player who was excited like a little kid to play 'The Beautiful Game'(afcouse in Indian context its Cricket not Football).The schedule for the day included two semifinal matches and one grand finale.The four teams for this tourney were JY STARS(led by Mr.Jose Sebastian),JY Heroes(led by Mr.Jacob Jose),Heavens XI(led by Dony Peter),Celestial Arrows(led by Manoj KJ).
The first semifinal was between JY Heroes & JY Stars.Stars one the toss and put Heroes into bat.It was an 8 Over tourney hence no time for batsmen to settle-in thus the very first ball is a ball equivalent to one in a slog over.Heroes batting was led by the young brigade of Jomon(an engg aspirant) and Floyd(an engg passout and a microsoft employee in the making).They both added 31 runs for the first wicket until the pace of Fr.Mathew(a Somascan Priest in the disguise of a super fast train)caught Jomon who gave a simple catch to Jerry(the teenz keeper).Floyd was the star for JY heroes scoring 30 runs of the total 59 runs.The JY heroes innnings ended at 59 runs for the loss of just one wicket(They were saving the wickets I guess).JY Stars came into bat and smoothly scored those runs under the watch ful eyes of their captain Jose Sebastian who was sitting in the pavilion looking out for new controversies and counting stars!JY stars got it right they went for runs and scored it on time to clinch the match.Cant describe how happy JY Stars were, they were on moon not stars!

The second match was the most waited one between the favourite team of the tourney Heavens XI and the underdogs(literally) Celestial Arrows.Heavens XI under their dynamic captian Dony won the toss and put Manoj KJ's Celestial arrows to bat.A decision Heavens XI will later go on to regret.CA(Celestial Arrow) had a disastrous start losing Deepu Jose on the first ball of the match,obviously the bowler was Dony.But that was just a sample of what was not to come, the CA batsmen belted the Heavens XI round the park .Fours & Sixes rained from the bats of Abhy(Hail Mary),Bejoy(Singapore)as the CA's reached a super score of 100 in 8 overs.The Highest scorer was Bejoy followed by Dony(Heavens XI)who almost created a world record for maximum of number of wides in an over.CA's were highly excited that they got into the field charged up,infact so much charged up that they took an extra player onto the field.Now they had 12 players on field -this is what we call stand apart and being counted.The match organizers woke up late to realize that they were seeing 12 people fielding and umpire Vijay Sebastian found his communication skills quite useful in convincing Dony that 20 run penalty will be sufficient to compensate for this grave mistake by CA's.CA's were cruising with some wickets until then so they decided to hand over 20 runs but they soon realized that it could be a mistake when they saw that the heavy bats of Sminu & Crispin proved why Heavens XI were the strongest team both on paper and on field.Their combined force hit some huge sixers but CA's held their lost nerves and won the match on the last ball when a four on that ball could have seen Heavens XI in heavenly glory.Bejoy from CA was declared the man of the match.Thus it was all set for a final showdown between JY Stars and Celestial Arrows both needing heavenly blessings to keep up their winning streak.
The Finals: JY Stars Vs Celestial Arrows !

JY Stars won the toss put themselves into bat and they did put in a decent performance scoring 67 .The star was Ashish(Prolife)who intially mistook JYPL to be a football tournament(as the snaps can better tell)who came to the party scoring 28 runs.CA's bowling hero was Bejoy taking 3 scalps in the final few overs.CA's came into the field to bat with just 68 on the board might have already set one hand on the most coveted JYPL trophy but Stars bowlers had other plans under the firey spells of Lijesh,Johnson and Fr.Mathew .CA's crumbled into pieces surrendering an easy win to JY stars.CA's were all out for mere 42.Aashish was declared man of the match.Thus JY Stars proved why they were the best team on that day(may be other teams have a different opinion nex time around...)Kudos to Jose Sebastian for leading JY Stars to a well deserved victory.Manoj KJ was declared Most Valuable Player for scoring 0 runs,taking 0 wickets and 0 catches ..surprised!!!!....Manoj led a team to believe that we can achieve impossible things through prayers and CA's clearly knew that they were playing only for God's Glory(Believe it or not I was part of the team ...every time Manoj KJ raised his hand in the field we knew what we needed to do..PRAY).Bejoy from CA on grounds of pure statistics was the Best Player of JYPL.

This was the more cricket part of JYPL.I will leave the pictures do the talking with regard to all the fun and fellowship part of JYPL.Have a hearty laugh-CLICK HERE FOR THE JYPL SNAPS.

Team Behind JYPL:

Tom Joseph was the main organizer of JYPL.Jacob Jose the designer of the Logo's and our true inspiration.Melvin the designer for JYPL best player trophy.Anto Roy & Rajshekhar our logistics team,Prince our Drinks organizer,Savitha made the day great with some amazing face painting opportunities,Fr.Tom our support and dad,Ann Mary our Coordinator and chief guest,Vijay Sebastian the multi-talented umpire,Rajshekhar/Sminu part time leg umpires,Floyd/Jinu/Johnson the scorers,Dony our part time Commentator,Anto Machery/Feena/Patrick/shinto our photographers,Candice/Jessy/Nisha and team our cheerleaders and drummers.,Shaju the man behind the original JYPL idea.......and the rest all who made it a great day of Joy and Fun.And Above all Our Lord Jesus Christ who brought us all together in His name- JESUS YOUTH !

and afcouse my MOM for giving me an opportunity to write this article late in the night! .....and the OSCARS goes to...................... JY STARS !