India lost its first match to Bangladesh in the World Cup. It found it hard to overcome the Bangladeshi youngsters. And on the same day, Pakistan lost to Ireland. Bob Woolmer, the Pakistani coach, died of a cardiac arrest. And Inzamam Ul Haq declared his retirement from One Day International Cricket.
These are some interesting happenings over the past few days in the World Cup. I normally don't watch cricket. I used to, when I was in school. But all those match-fixing scandals unearthed a few years back totally turned me away from it. But the India-Bangladesh match on saturday rejuvenated my interest in watching cricket. I was amazed to see the underdogs win. I am not very patriotic when I watch matches. I like to see a good game. And for me, a good game is one in which the weaker side fights hard, performs its best and finally defeats the stronger side. Yes, the result does matter.
I used to be a great cricketer. Really! Though it's long time since I played, I think I can still play very well if I try. I was an all-rounder. I batted with great technique, learnt by watching matches on TV for hours. Nobody else in my team could play the Sweep. I was also a medium-fast bowler. Tried spin once, but the ball stopped turning after one month of spin-bowling. I was the only one in my team who never did pathra (like throwing a stone - patthar) bowling, though because of this, I had to compromise a little on the pace that I could generate. And I was also the only one in my team who dived and took catches. I watched Mohinder Amarnath's lessons on DD to learn how to catch the ball in the right way. I also used a heavy bat, just like Sachin, though we had one light bat also (2 bats for two batsmen at the striking and non-striking ends. One bat was put down and used as a creeze at the bowler's end when we played without a runner). I was a pinch hitter, trying to hit every ball to the boundary. Tennis ball, though. I was well known for my technique.
I started playing cricket very early, when I was in my KG classes. I remember arguing with Mannu, the pados ka bigda baccha, that I should be allowed to bat first coz I was the only one wearing a full-pant, and in "actual Cricket", everyone wears a full pant. Everybody agreed after a few minutes of argument and I was allowed to bat first. I know it was a stupid argument - Effect of remnants of stupidity from my previous birth...showed up often when I was very small. Even now they do. But now I don't realize when and how often.
My friends and I got our preliminary Cricket lessons by watching it on TV and we got heavily misled because of that. For example, on TV, the pitch is normally shown longitudinally, with the camera over the side-screens, as the bowler bowls and the batsman faces him. But in this view, the pitch looks very small. So for a few years during my primary-school-days, we used to play on a pitch almost one-third of the normal size. We used to play with a plastic ball and a small bat which Hitesh Chikate had bought. The wickets were 2 stones placed about 2 feet apart. If the ball went over the gap between them, the batsman was out. And when there was confusion about the height the ball went at, the issue was settled by argument...the little Argumentative Indians. 2 more stones were used to indicate wides.
All except me did pathra bowling even in those days. We hardly knew any english at that time. All we knew was the alphabet and a few poems learnt by heart which we didn't understand the least bit. So we mistook "spin" to mean "fast-bowling" coz the word "spin" sounds like that. So most of us did "spin" bowling. On such a small pitch, it was hard to face fast-bowling. But we practiced a lot and became experts at hitting plastic balls thorwn fast. Hitesh was the only guy who played almost as good as I did. In fact, he and I were the only two permanent members of the team. The rest kept changing. He was a passionate player. Sometimes he used to spend hours bowling at a wall. He was a good right-hand batsman and bowler. But something made him want to be a lefty. He practiced left-hand bowling and batting for months. He was crazily dedicated to becoming a lefty. Finally he could manage decent left-handed batting and bowling. But that affected his right-handed performance.
Our first match was against RTS Colony. My classmate Javed lived there and challenged us on behalf of his team. Their team was more experienced and had played baaji matches with many colonies. All our team members were very excited. It was going to be our first match! But we all refused to pay for a baaji match. In a baaji match, the losing team has to pay a fixed amount of money to the winning team. The RTS guys agreed to have a non-baaji match considering the fact that we were all inexperienced kids. We also asked them to bring wickets, bats and balls, since we didn't have wickets, had only one plastic ball and our bat was humiliatingly small and broken here and there.
On the evening fixed for the match, all the players in our team reached the ground pretty early. We all wore our school-shoes - the white ones that we used to wear for school on saturdays. Some of us wore full pants too. We discussed our strategies - that we will do "spin" bowling, hit all the balls and win the game. There were 5 guys in our team. Javed and his team arrived. They had six wickets which they fixed, 3 on each side of the pitch. We got scared by looking at the length of the pitch. We protested. But then a big guy from our colony who knew the RTS colony guys said that that was the right length for a pitch. We got it reduced a little bit, by persistent protesting, but it was still double the length that we were used to playing on. They fixed the boundaries too far. They started laughing when we told them about the roads and trees that used to serve as boundaries for our daily games. They fixed some other trees and roads, that were double the distance we had been using. It was as if suddenly the whole ground we used to play on was magnified by a scale of 2 and we had to play on it. Some of the RTS guys were double our sizes.
We won the toss. And like with all normal kids, we were eager to bat. It was a 5-over game. Our innings were a huge mess. We couldn't lift the bats the RTS guys had brought coz they were too heavy, we couldn't face their "spin" (fast) bowling, and we had no concept of actual spin bowling, which some of the RTS bowlers did. And the "Dog" ball was a lot quicker than our plastic balls. We were also not used to playing with runners at the non-striker's end. We were 5 players in all. And in 1.5 overs, we were all-out for 5 runs. It was a shock. Hitesh and I were very disappointed. The RTS guys were telling our colony's big guy that our team didn't know how to play Cricket.
Hitesh and I decided that our "spin" bowling had to be at its best if we had to win. I started the first over, but the match was over in 2 balls - one four, one wide and one two. There were no runs for wide balls. The "Dog" ball was so much heavier than our plastic ball and the pitch so long, even I had to do pathra bowling so that the ball reached the other end.
It was disappointing. But we learnt many things about how to play cricket and made all those corrections in our game. As I grew up, Hitesh also grew up and so did many other kids in my colony. We started playing with bigger kids. Now with tennis balls, longer pitches, wickets and bats of standard sizes. We played many baaji matches later under Kakku, our Sardar Captain who used to get pocket money from home which he invested in baaji matches. I never gave a penny. Kakku was great. He never asked us for money. Though we did win a few of those matches, we lost more.
Kakku thought I had great abilities, and wanted me to be a vice-captain. But I often revolted against him for silly reasons which hurt him coz he was an emotional guy. One such revolt split our team altogether. That was unfortunate. We never got together again.
After 10th Standard, I stopped playing outdoor games that involved running around. You can guess the reason. Besides, my interest in sports decreased and that in music increased. I grew a little fat too because of this.
But for as long as I played, I enjoyed the game very much. I will always remember some of my innings. Like once, I hit a lot of sixes and fours and was not-out. And once, in a baaji match, I opened the innings with a six and was caught in the very next ball. I was feared by all batsman during the one month when my balls used to spin by 60 degrees. The wonderful dives in grass are unforgettable. In 10th Standard, I got a chance to play with cork balls - the actual cricket balls. Since we used to play without pads, gloves and guards, we used to bowl slowly. That gave enough time for batsman to follow all techniques and hit nice shots with perfect placement. I was very good at Square-Cuts, Down-the-Wicket Shots and Glances. I practiced a lot to be able to Sweep. It was a great experience. Though I hurt myself on a few occasions, I never had a major injury.
Those were great times. I wish I could bring them back. It was so much fun. May be all of us at o3 can get together sometime for a cricket tournament. I will bat first! Maine pehle bola.
These are some interesting happenings over the past few days in the World Cup. I normally don't watch cricket. I used to, when I was in school. But all those match-fixing scandals unearthed a few years back totally turned me away from it. But the India-Bangladesh match on saturday rejuvenated my interest in watching cricket. I was amazed to see the underdogs win. I am not very patriotic when I watch matches. I like to see a good game. And for me, a good game is one in which the weaker side fights hard, performs its best and finally defeats the stronger side. Yes, the result does matter.
I used to be a great cricketer. Really! Though it's long time since I played, I think I can still play very well if I try. I was an all-rounder. I batted with great technique, learnt by watching matches on TV for hours. Nobody else in my team could play the Sweep. I was also a medium-fast bowler. Tried spin once, but the ball stopped turning after one month of spin-bowling. I was the only one in my team who never did pathra (like throwing a stone - patthar) bowling, though because of this, I had to compromise a little on the pace that I could generate. And I was also the only one in my team who dived and took catches. I watched Mohinder Amarnath's lessons on DD to learn how to catch the ball in the right way. I also used a heavy bat, just like Sachin, though we had one light bat also (2 bats for two batsmen at the striking and non-striking ends. One bat was put down and used as a creeze at the bowler's end when we played without a runner). I was a pinch hitter, trying to hit every ball to the boundary. Tennis ball, though. I was well known for my technique.
I started playing cricket very early, when I was in my KG classes. I remember arguing with Mannu, the pados ka bigda baccha, that I should be allowed to bat first coz I was the only one wearing a full-pant, and in "actual Cricket", everyone wears a full pant. Everybody agreed after a few minutes of argument and I was allowed to bat first. I know it was a stupid argument - Effect of remnants of stupidity from my previous birth...showed up often when I was very small. Even now they do. But now I don't realize when and how often.
My friends and I got our preliminary Cricket lessons by watching it on TV and we got heavily misled because of that. For example, on TV, the pitch is normally shown longitudinally, with the camera over the side-screens, as the bowler bowls and the batsman faces him. But in this view, the pitch looks very small. So for a few years during my primary-school-days, we used to play on a pitch almost one-third of the normal size. We used to play with a plastic ball and a small bat which Hitesh Chikate had bought. The wickets were 2 stones placed about 2 feet apart. If the ball went over the gap between them, the batsman was out. And when there was confusion about the height the ball went at, the issue was settled by argument...the little Argumentative Indians. 2 more stones were used to indicate wides.
All except me did pathra bowling even in those days. We hardly knew any english at that time. All we knew was the alphabet and a few poems learnt by heart which we didn't understand the least bit. So we mistook "spin" to mean "fast-bowling" coz the word "spin" sounds like that. So most of us did "spin" bowling. On such a small pitch, it was hard to face fast-bowling. But we practiced a lot and became experts at hitting plastic balls thorwn fast. Hitesh was the only guy who played almost as good as I did. In fact, he and I were the only two permanent members of the team. The rest kept changing. He was a passionate player. Sometimes he used to spend hours bowling at a wall. He was a good right-hand batsman and bowler. But something made him want to be a lefty. He practiced left-hand bowling and batting for months. He was crazily dedicated to becoming a lefty. Finally he could manage decent left-handed batting and bowling. But that affected his right-handed performance.
Our first match was against RTS Colony. My classmate Javed lived there and challenged us on behalf of his team. Their team was more experienced and had played baaji matches with many colonies. All our team members were very excited. It was going to be our first match! But we all refused to pay for a baaji match. In a baaji match, the losing team has to pay a fixed amount of money to the winning team. The RTS guys agreed to have a non-baaji match considering the fact that we were all inexperienced kids. We also asked them to bring wickets, bats and balls, since we didn't have wickets, had only one plastic ball and our bat was humiliatingly small and broken here and there.
On the evening fixed for the match, all the players in our team reached the ground pretty early. We all wore our school-shoes - the white ones that we used to wear for school on saturdays. Some of us wore full pants too. We discussed our strategies - that we will do "spin" bowling, hit all the balls and win the game. There were 5 guys in our team. Javed and his team arrived. They had six wickets which they fixed, 3 on each side of the pitch. We got scared by looking at the length of the pitch. We protested. But then a big guy from our colony who knew the RTS colony guys said that that was the right length for a pitch. We got it reduced a little bit, by persistent protesting, but it was still double the length that we were used to playing on. They fixed the boundaries too far. They started laughing when we told them about the roads and trees that used to serve as boundaries for our daily games. They fixed some other trees and roads, that were double the distance we had been using. It was as if suddenly the whole ground we used to play on was magnified by a scale of 2 and we had to play on it. Some of the RTS guys were double our sizes.
We won the toss. And like with all normal kids, we were eager to bat. It was a 5-over game. Our innings were a huge mess. We couldn't lift the bats the RTS guys had brought coz they were too heavy, we couldn't face their "spin" (fast) bowling, and we had no concept of actual spin bowling, which some of the RTS bowlers did. And the "Dog" ball was a lot quicker than our plastic balls. We were also not used to playing with runners at the non-striker's end. We were 5 players in all. And in 1.5 overs, we were all-out for 5 runs. It was a shock. Hitesh and I were very disappointed. The RTS guys were telling our colony's big guy that our team didn't know how to play Cricket.
Hitesh and I decided that our "spin" bowling had to be at its best if we had to win. I started the first over, but the match was over in 2 balls - one four, one wide and one two. There were no runs for wide balls. The "Dog" ball was so much heavier than our plastic ball and the pitch so long, even I had to do pathra bowling so that the ball reached the other end.
It was disappointing. But we learnt many things about how to play cricket and made all those corrections in our game. As I grew up, Hitesh also grew up and so did many other kids in my colony. We started playing with bigger kids. Now with tennis balls, longer pitches, wickets and bats of standard sizes. We played many baaji matches later under Kakku, our Sardar Captain who used to get pocket money from home which he invested in baaji matches. I never gave a penny. Kakku was great. He never asked us for money. Though we did win a few of those matches, we lost more.
Kakku thought I had great abilities, and wanted me to be a vice-captain. But I often revolted against him for silly reasons which hurt him coz he was an emotional guy. One such revolt split our team altogether. That was unfortunate. We never got together again.
After 10th Standard, I stopped playing outdoor games that involved running around. You can guess the reason. Besides, my interest in sports decreased and that in music increased. I grew a little fat too because of this.
But for as long as I played, I enjoyed the game very much. I will always remember some of my innings. Like once, I hit a lot of sixes and fours and was not-out. And once, in a baaji match, I opened the innings with a six and was caught in the very next ball. I was feared by all batsman during the one month when my balls used to spin by 60 degrees. The wonderful dives in grass are unforgettable. In 10th Standard, I got a chance to play with cork balls - the actual cricket balls. Since we used to play without pads, gloves and guards, we used to bowl slowly. That gave enough time for batsman to follow all techniques and hit nice shots with perfect placement. I was very good at Square-Cuts, Down-the-Wicket Shots and Glances. I practiced a lot to be able to Sweep. It was a great experience. Though I hurt myself on a few occasions, I never had a major injury.
Those were great times. I wish I could bring them back. It was so much fun. May be all of us at o3 can get together sometime for a cricket tournament. I will bat first! Maine pehle bola.
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