galli galli mein kirrkett!

Cricket. India. As a child, when you have finally managed to learn how to walk and are running around the house to exercise your new found mobility, inevitably, a hollow plastic stick will be thrust into your hands and a plastic sphere will be thrown towards you. And you swing your arms. In your mind you are mimicking the very actions that you have seen some brown, white and black men do on the television, day in and day out. All this happens within the confines of your home. In my case, I think it was the terrace of our joint-family house at that time. Or perhaps it was the big partitioned room that served as the flat for my family.

Soon enough, I graduated to small locally made wooden bats and rubber balls. And to the sprawling post-office campus next door to our house. In Berhampur, our house was bang in the centre of the town - with the the police HQ on one side, the central post office on the other, and with the bus station opposite our house. There was also some sort of a stadium beyond the bus station, but we, the common public, were never allowed into it. Anyway, the post office with its vast unused paved areas was my own stadium. Played there with brother, the couple of cousins of my age, whenever they visited, and eventually with some school friends. Occasionally, though, an enterprising shot would go high and far enough to hit a glass window somewhere, leading to a clang, a shout from within the building, and a dash by us to vanish from the crime scene. Some other times, without even having caused any damage, some bloke (possibly just been humiliated by his boss [snigger] ) would come out of the offices and order us out of the premises.

We obviously needed alternate arrangements for these periods when the post office was out of bounds. And that's where divinity helped :P. Oh I didn't mention right; opposite our house on the other side, was a catholic church (yep, there were roads, pretty busy main roads on both sides of our house). It had a lush green lawn lying vacant on one side (not the cemetery side :P). This lawn would become our playground for some period, until usually the church is taken over by some sort of event (weddings perhaps?), with no regard for the sporting needs of the surrounding community. Then, we would sneak back into the post office, rightly continuing the cycle.

The other town that was enthralled by my galli cricket during this period was Tenali - whenever I went to visit my grandparents. Depending on where my cousins lived, we would either occupy their front yard or their rooftop. Always preferred the front yard; playing on the rooftop was more of a stair climbing exercise rather than any fun. Any mishit or a wild shot by someone overcome with emotion would have to be followed by first locating where the ball fell on the street, and then going down three levels of stairs to the road to retrieve it. Sometimes, the ball would conveniently rest in the open flowing drain. Retrieving it on such occasions involved some dexterity of using two long sticks as chopsticks to pick it up from the drain and then rolling it around on some nearby sand to dry it up. The ends we had to go for a few hours of cricketing enjoyment!

As I moved into the teens, I graduated to bigger cities - Chennai and then Hyderabad - and also to true 'galli  cricket'. Yes, at the first house in Hyderabad, I used to play on the street in front of our apartment. It was very limiting though. Only straight shots were allowed. Any slight angle on your shot, and you have likely lost yet another ball. Soon, however, we moved to a different apartment, and clearly a much better one, as it provided two options for playing areas-- the vast square behind the building, which never had any traffic or the basement of the building itself (which was actually for vehicle parking, but a side of it was left unused; this side also got filled up with dirty rain water every monsoon season). I loved playing in the basement the most. Mainly because it was only conducive to my favourite version of the game with all fielders closed in, and airy shots that directly hit the low roof being declared out. Hence, one ended up being 'technical' :P 

Anyway, most of the games of the teens were played in what can be called grounds. The most frequented one being the one pretty close to home. We (me, my classmate, his brothers and some of their neighbourhood kids) would have regular and quite serious matches against the kids of the adjacent 'basti' (slum). With hard taped tennis balls (rather than the rubber ones), sticks for stumps rather than stones, and all the field around the bat being in play (rather than just the area down the wicket), this was a close to proper cricket as I would have hoped then ;). 

Cricket wasn't a frequent activity while in IIIT (not for amateurs like me that is :P). Of course, there were the occasional games on the lawns of the hostel all of which invariably had to end with losing the ball in the surrounding hedges. Only towards the end of the years there, did some of us amateurs also start playing on the main sporting ground. I actually preferred the lawn over the ground though. The lawn with its fast paced game, unexpected events and close-in bantering was definitely more fun than the more sober ground version.

And then the lands where cricket first developed - South England! Ironically, though, there was no regular cricket for me here. Was put off by all the formal games happening all around-- everyone belonging to some or the other club team and dressing up in the whole gear paraphernalia as if going into battle :P But there have been exceptions, of course, involving a 'galli' style version of the game. The first one has been well documented here by a great reporter called mythalez :P A couple of games over the years at the same location followed. However, the whole career spanning over 2 decades came to fruition in September this year, when I had been finally persuaded to play a proper game; to make up numbers for the flailing village team of my ex-supervisor for their second last game of the season. Even managed to get a pair of white, crickety trousers for the occasion! But then, of course, the match had to be rained out. However, patience is the key to playing cricket they say ;). So for the final game of their season, I turned up again, and this time, we did get to play! Wearing those pads and gloves left me completely bewildered for a while though.  Sensibly, did not try putting on the helmet too! Not needed either as we were playing some local church team who didn't seem any better than me :D. And soon I got into the groove and started playing decently. And then, soon enough, got out :P. Thus, I made my debut in the formal game of cricket. Perhaps, that was also to be my last game ..... who knows!  (any comparisons with Dravid's T20 career are welcome ;) )

India vs Pakistan .. cricket series

This is not about the teams that couldnt go beyond the first round in the world cup. This is about the cricket that I played yesterday. Yeah, we were a group of 9 Indians playing against 9 Pakistanis. It was an initiave of the Pakistanis. They knew my friend and invited him. And my friend like a true Indian gathered the troops i.e others like me. The bat, ball, tape over the ball, wickets, bottles marking the boundary, everything was supplied by the Pakistanis. They apparently play regularly. And our team contained people like me who firstly, cant do much with either the bat or the ball and secondly havent even played cricket once in the past few years.

We played in this huge {park, ground, green area} kind of place in the city. It is a huge area, makes up a sizeable fraction of the city, dotted with lakes, a small reserve etc. The ground that we were playing on, had atleast 10 football games, 5-6 other cricket games, a couple of rugby games, a few kite flyers and frisbee throwers, lots of dog walkers and sunbathers around. We were playing with a taped tennis ball. This form of the ball is the commonly used one in Pakistan, I think. Its the kind of ball that all their famous swingers and fast bowlers have started learning their art with. Its a regular tennis ball that has a regular tape tightly wound around it totally covering it. In this way, the fur of the ball it protected and it becomes a bit heavier also.

Now lets get to the match details. The first match was of 8 overs each. They batted first and scored 71. The runs were scored either through wides (which were more than just a generous amount) or through boundaries. We had a few bowlers who were so quick, that you could grab a few winks between the time the ball is released and the time it reaches the batsman to be hoisted for a six. Yeah, they did seem to have a couple of Afridi followers :D. There was one bowler in our team though, who was stout, bowled very slowly and got 3-4 wickets in his two overs. He was duly rechristened as 'Ramesh Powar' by the opponents :D. The Indians started the chase disastrously, as expected, losing the first wicket in the third ball with one run on the board. Yep that was me :D, clean bowled by a fast bowler who emulates Shoaib Akhtar, i.e his run up starts closer to the boundary than the wicket. And that led to the usual top order collapse. But, then walks out our captain, my friend and like Yuvraj Singh these days, belts the ball everywhere and starts scoring very quickly with a lot of easy looking shots that have the ball 'racing to the boundary'. So, from a really hopeless situation, we were back with a chance to win the match. The game went onto the last ball, of which 3 runs were required but the batsman on strike was not the captain and so we lost.

The second match was just 6 overs each. We chose to bat first and scored 48 runs. This game 'went down to the wire' too. However, this time the Pakistanis required 4 runs of the last ball to win. Then our bowler gave them a wide. So once again, the equation for the last ball was same as before. And they too lost like we had done earlier, being unable to score any run of the last ball. (No, I didnt get to bat in this match. Probably the reason why we won?)

The third and final match (final in all senses ;) ) was again of 8 overs each. We chose to chase this time (I have no idea about the reasoning behind this decision). The Pakistanis went beserk, hitting a sixer every other correct ball (we didnt relent on the wides either). By now, we also had a few tired football players who were resting, following our match with interest. So, they ended up scoring a little over one hundred. And I opened along with my captain this time. My captain started the proceedings with a six of the first ball. That somehow affected their Shoaib Akhtar emulator, who sent down 5 wides :D. And they were really 'wide'. However along came a ball straight onto the wicket, the batsman i.e captain hit it back even straighter and really hard. Standing at the runners position, I worried about the umpire that he would have to be carried off the field as the ball was sure to smash his face. And it would have, had the bowler not stretched his hand and had the ball not stuck to his palm as if there was some glue there! And our captain was gone! Two other wickets tumbled too while I was watching from the non-strikers end. Then in the next over, I got my chance to survive a few wides, score a run, run a few more as the non-striker and finally be completely beaten and bowled. The collapse never stopped and soon we were all out having just scored some 30 runs. True to the Indian style, we buckled helplessly, facing a daunting score to chase in the 'final'.

So my dear readers, it pains me greatly to report that the Pakistanis won the series 2-1. My complete contribution to the Indian team in the series was a single run scored, a few runs saved and a run out.

Trivia: A pakistani guy commented that after Pakistan was kicked out of world cup, he was hoping that atleast India would go through to later stages and there would be some matches worth watching. My friend responded, "we are good neighbours, you came out, so we had to come out too". To which I added, "ofcourse, we are good neighbours, we not just came out in support of you, we also let our other two small neighbours get through."

First post from home!!

Almost 2 weeks at home! The last time i was continually at home for more than a week was way back in the summer of 03 after my first year. Now, I have the pc at home and also a decent net connection. So how does it feel when blogging from home? Totally weird. Need to get used to it.

Watching almost all the Fifa matches, not particularly because I am any soccer fan but rather because I have nothing much to do. Also, at last I have been able to read a book of that famed author 'Aldous Huxley'. Nope, it is not the well known 'Brave New World' but one of his earliest novels called 'Antic Hay'. No comments on it other than that it definitely enriched my vocabulary, refreshed many of those Gre words. My next book shall be 'The Fountainhead'. People seem to either love Ayn Rand's writings or hate them. Dont know which side of the fence I would find myself.

My predicitions regarding the world cup? Argentina or maybe Germany or even Spain or unexpectedly France (the match between spain and france is about to start now). Too many? Note that theres no Brazil or England or Italy. I so wished that Ghana would beat Brazil 8->. However, do not ridicule if the final turns out to be a England-Brazil/Italy affair :D.

People still ask me, 'so where are you going finally?' and i still evade the answer :D.