Tape it, rip it

It was so similar, yet it was so different. I've played street cricket in India, played under lights, played with rules restricting scoring to the straights, played it with a lot of fervour. I’ve played with tennis, rubber and cork balls but never tried out using a hard tennis ball wrapped in tape.

It was a six-a-side game in one of the streets of Defence Colony – with stumps placed in the middle of the road and occasional breaks caused by vehicles passing by. With houses on either side, lofting over the walls and into the compounds meant out. Hit straight or nudge and push; go for glory, trying to whack it straight, or be a bit cheeky and paddle it around.

Maybe it was only me, but this ball required one to actually watch closely. With tennis or rubber balls back home, it’s only a matter of reading the length. Once you’ve got it within your sights it’s not too tough to swing through the same line.

Here the ball invariably does something. Before pitching it swerves, sometimes very late; after pitching it can zip through faster. Once you face a couple, you invariably stay on the back foot and try to angle it around; it’s only after a few more that you try and smack it down the ground.

Bowling is great fun. The slightly faster pace is pleasantly surprising. You realise that it can actually get through pretty quick, so you walk back and try to bowl a bit quicker. Superb. Longer run-up this time, hurry in quicker, bend your back more. Awesome. It works for a couple of balls; then you stretch to the extreme and ... thwack. Even before you have bent down, while still panting your heart out, the ball has raced past for four. So what to do now? Let’s bowl even faster and get this $&%&$.

Similarities are many – sledges, running commentary, tactics, scraps. With a decisive game on, at a crucial stage, Mr. Tall Left-Arm Terror (TLT) comes in to bowl his third over. Vehement protests. Why? Maximum of two overs per bowler. Did you say so at the start? No, but it’s understood. No way, play if you want. Shut up you %&$%&. Get out you $%&*$.

As they say in the gullies back home – every cricket match is followed by a fight, every fight is followed by a cricket match.