Street is the stadium - The Hindu - Opinion - Open Page (13-Feb-2022)
Street is the stadium
Gully cricket popularized the philosophy of inclusiveness through the game
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/street-is-the-stadium/article38417945.ece
The 1970s and
1980s, the golden era for youngsters who indulged in outdoor play. Cricket matches of yesteryear had a vibrant flavour. I mean ‘street cricket’ that we played at a young
age. Bricks or even coconut-tree trunks,
if not a small gate, formed our wickets.
Or the stumps and bails were drawn on a compound wall.
The bats used to
be the hard middle section of a coconut frond.
The few who bought a decent bat from a sports store counted their blessings. Though linseed oil is recommended to season the
bats, we used castor oil available at homes.
We used tennis and
rubber balls, and the bounce improved our skills. For the adventurous ones, there was the slightly
harder cork ball – not the ones used in nets today. Also, the fruits of large red-flower trees
doting our roads were made into balls after being mashed along with its sticky glue-like
substance and dried in the sun over few days.
Another invention was the tennis ball strapped by flat rubber-bands that
were evenly spread, which reduced its bounce but made it move faster on hard
surfaces.
A cricket ball
stuffed in a sock and tied with a string to a hook in the ceiling served well
for indoor batting practice.
We played with
gusto where the street served as our pitch, neighbourhood as stadium, and
neighbours as spectators. A few good
ones encouraged while a few not-so-good ones cursed and confiscated the ball if
it fell in their house or broke their windowpanes.
Open fields
welcomed a game of cricket, except that they were dirty and full of thorns and
wild plants. We used weekends to cut
down the plants, sweep the field, and tilled a patch of land in the centre to
prepare a pitch over a week or two to facilitate tournaments.
Unwritten rules
“If you bring your
cricket bat, you shall open the innings.”
“If you bring your wickets for the match, you will play 1st
down.” “If you bring your own tennis
ball, then you will get bowling chances.”
“If I bring 2 pencils, will I get to play in the eleven?” These were the rules.
We played friendly
matches where we wagered pencils. We
extracted a batting order thus – numbers written on the fore-arm of one player
while others lined-up in front were assigned an order based on their standing
position, or numbers written on the ground and covered with a bat on the same
logic, or a person blind-folded called out to whom the number is assigned when
another person displayed a number with his fingers.
Necessity is the
mother of invention, but innovation is the mother of all happiness when scarce
resources are used to maximum benefit.
We played the entire day in the hot sun – substitute and concussion
replacements were common. The
score-cards were drawn out on sheets of paper, sometimes inscribed on sand or with
counting sticks.
The breed of
umpires were mostly players from either side who did not make it to the playing
eleven. They were a force-fit, with a captain’s
promise to accommodate them in playing eleven for the next game. The best umpires were players who got out;
rather than heading back to the pavilion they donned the umpire’s hat. Umpiring standards evolved and often were the
sole reason for an abrupt end to a good game of cricket.
The 1983 World Cup
triumph popularized gully cricket to encourage more people to play, especially rural
talent, and hone their skills. What was
otherwise a rich man’s game, had a serious advent of players from hitherto-unknown
places to represent our country in the highest forms.
Cricket is a
religion and players have God-like status.
India popularized the philosophy of inclusiveness through cricket. I’ve watched with rapt attention many girls
playing street cricket. The growth of
women’s cricket in India and the emergence of class players can be attributed
to this approach that scaled from the ranks.
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