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Gully cricket goes for a six
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Sometimes, the guy who brought his bat for the team would dictate all the rules, so much that you had to think twice about getting him out. For the wretched chap, all the time, threatens to leave the game and go home. And ultimately, he always wanted to bat first.
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WHAT IS played on a ground with over 50 sticks/stumps/rocks of various sizes, with more players than an audience, with bats of various shapes and plastic, rubber, cork and/or leather balls?
Cricket in Chennai.
No, not `gully' (street) cricket. The good old days of growing up with gully cricket are a thing of the past. Today, it's a whole new ball game. It's played by multiple teams at a common venue, thanks to the disappearing spaces and playgrounds.
Even a few years ago, there were open spaces, where you could take your neighbourhood team to play cricket. If your colony did not have empty plots, there were the bylanes and dead end streets to thrust your stumps and mark it your territory.
The ritual of fetching the ball that's gone into neighbouring houses, broken window panes, negotiating the dogs, befriending other children in the area to form your own strong team, making your own rules according to the dimensions of the gully.
Only chucking was allowed. No leg before wicket. In the absence of stumps, the bowler could keep his leg on the brick at his end and merely catch the ball to effect a run-out, one-pitch catch was acceptable, dissent was a regular feature as cricket often transformed to WWF on the streets. Parents would soon enter scene to play third umpire, match referee and take action on the erring players.
Sometimes, the guy who brought his bat for the team would dictate all the rules, so much that you had to think twice about getting him out. For the wretched chap, all the time, threatens to leave the game and go home. And ultimately, he always wanted to bat first.
There were no runners, no-balls and wides didn't get you extra runs and sometimes only full-toss was allowed. Hitting the ball inside the house could mean that you are out and there was always a probability of the match being called off for lack of spare balls.
The rubber would ultimately crack. If it was leather, it would go out of shape, if it was cork, you had to be careful not to let it get into water. And take extra precautions about the thorny bushes or open drain in the area where many balls have disappeared.
Ultimately, it is gully cricket which gave you your chance to be the match-winning hero. Most of us might have never made it into the school cricket team and gully cricket with self-made rules was the only hope to be the self-styled champion.
There were ``bet matches'' you challenged your neighbourhood teams to, pooled in money and lost, in most cases because the other team ``cheated''.
Those were the days... Sigh! And look at today's children. They are deprived. They don't have proper playgrounds to play. Any Corporation playground has over a dozen teams sharing the ground, the ground's full of pitches. There is confusion as the batsman suddenly finds more than a ball coming at him — one from his bowler, one that will soon hit his wicket behind his back from the other match.
There are no more empty plots today in your neighbourhood. Even the flats that used to boast of playgrounds have opted for an extension and built additional bedrooms, eating into the playground space.
The streets have become high-risk traffic zones. You can no longer play gully cricket in them. That leaves the children of today with just two options — one, to head to their school playground where hundreds of other children from their school play or to head to the nearest Corporation playground where hundreds of other children from their neighbourhood play.
With different age-groups playing in one area, it is almost impossible for the teams to mix and match to share the ground. Besides, the players are too many. And the differences are numerous. To compound the issue, every team is used to its own rules.
So they all play in the same ground using different patches of it as their pitch, often straying into the other group's territory. Quarrels break out, some turn into fights, the fittest and the eldest of them control the playground and the younger ones are chased away.
Now, if this is the state of affairs of today, think about tomorrow. Where will the children of tomorrow play? Or will they play at all? They would. In all probability, it would be yet another whole new ball game.
It would be played inside the hall/bedroom/biggest room inside the house with a plastic/soft sponge ball with probably just 2-3 players, a boundary that's 15-20 feet away, a pitch of 10 feet. And it still would be called cricket!
By Sudhish Kamath
Illustrations by Surendra
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Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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