Different Strokes - I

The trophy would be a 2 rupee coin or two coins of 1 rupee, each contributed by the two teams. The venue – around the walnut trees along the banks of Romush, a tributary of Jehlum. The stumps – twigs from the nearby poplar or willow trees – three on the batting end and bowling one (or none) on the bowling end. For that matter we would never change sides at the end of overs. The balls – green, yellow, red or white plastic balls which we would call as ‘tennis’ ball. The red one was preferred as it was easy to find it out if ever it went into the bushes. And the name, brand of these ‘tennis’ balls was, usually, SKumar and this name was as preferred as SG or Kookaburra  in international cricket. For practice purposes we would, sometimes, use a stuffed ball - moaz ball - made up of old shreds of cloth stuffed into a sock! Yes, the sock was washed before being put into use, I guess! The seniors would tell me that if I could play the moaz ball well I could well play the leather ball. We used to get the leather ball – for ‘leather ball matches’ – from the village ‘A-team’ after they had played a couple of matches with that. We would play matches with the same ball for the whole season or until the seam of the ball ripped apart!

There would be a list of clauses which had to be verbally signed by the two teams before the toss – the toss in which no coins were tossed but a bat was, the choice being sadak & pahad instead of head and tail. The clauses included – whether or not ‘wides’ would be counted in the score, if a stumping would count as a wicket or not, who takes responsibility if the ball gets lost or rips apart during the play, what if a shot got intercepted by a branch or trunk of a walnut tree, whether or not the batsman would be deemed out if he hit the ball into a neighbour’s courtyard and who, in such a case, would have to make up the courage to bring the ball back!

All clauses signed, the match would begin. No scoreboards, for that matter no scorebooks, not even a piece of paper to jot down the runs! Both the teams would keep track of the score on their own and in case of any conflict, the players would have to give hisaab – details of every ball bowled – as if it was the judgement day! //…then there was a wide, then a single, then a four, then a dot ball, then a single; but he didn’t complete the single on the last ball; oh sorry! I’ll deduct that run// Run-outs would be the most controversial ones and more often than not the umpire would straight away rule a batsman not out (the umpire was always from the batting side!). The batsman on his part would show the mark of his bat’s landing in the crease as proof enough that he was ‘in’ when the ball hit the stumps (or the clay brick substituted for stumps, at the non-strikers end)! There were rarely any bails on the stumps and sometimes the ball would go in between two stumps without even disturbing the stumps – again controversial!

If the batsman ever hit the ball into the Romush and if it was agreed upon that it won’t count as ‘out’,  he would get 6 runs and start heaping praises upon….not himself but upon Shahid Afridi! “This is Afridi playing, mate!”, would be a typical brag (sic). I personally would never say such a thing. Partly because I would never hit such big shots – I was more like Dravid (and people would call me so!) being content with not-so-big shots, partly because I believed in being myself (without attributing my shots to any other player) and partly (or should I say hugely) because I was an ‘Indian’ and I could not say, “This is Jadeja playing ,mate!” lest I make a laughing stock of myself among all others who were (and are ‘Pakistanis’)! The bowlers had their own patrons – Shoaib Akhtar for example.

At times when we would play with the leather ball – the rugged one which we got from the village ‘A-team’ – it would be much more engaging. It was as if we were graduating from domestic cricket to international cricket. This is where the classification of bats would set in – there would be a ‘leather ball bat’ and a ‘tennis ball bat’! Common sense would dictate that we could play the tennis ball with a ‘leather ball bat’ as a tennis ball was way lighter than a leather ball. But there were strict instructions from the team management that the ‘leather ball bat’ should never be used to play the tennis ball. The stated reason – the bat may lose its stroke! Stroke – it was defined as a quality which only a few experienced players could analyse. If a batsman would middle a shot perfectly and despatch it beyond the boundary or into the Romush or onto the neighbour’s iron sheeted roof he would declare, “This bat has got a very good stroke!” The same thing – stroke – would fit perfectly as an excuse for those who failed with the bat!

To be concluded