Cricket@Gully

Not that I would confuse anything with spellings, but what I mean here is the staple of cricket played in the street where we grew up. I think that is something which is unique to our part of the world. Not just is this unique, it is also a staple fare for boys, and on occasion, girls.

You might be wondering what makes me dust the cobwebs of memory, and write about gali cricket. Simple ... its the T20! Much of the format reminds me of the gali cricket scenario that we have grown up with. For beginners, its cheeky. The bowl-out is something which I personally liked, considering its similarity to football, and hockey, and also the cheekiness that this brings to the game.

But even more so ... the players sitting on the bench just outside the boundary, instead of in a pavillion. This reminds me so of gali cricket. While the two batsmen were out there, the rest of the batting side would be perched not on benches, but on the seats of scooters or motorcycles, which happen to be parked in the street, due to their owners being busy with their work while we were playing. Though, this is where the similarity ends. From here on, dismissals were an exciting affair, especially those clean bowled. Because there was nothing clean about it. Considering we didnt have stumps, there were just two pieces of stone which represented the leg, an the off stumps, As a result, nobody was really sure whether the batsman would have been bowled out, or whether the ball was anywhere close to the stone-stumps. Of course, what you thought depended on which side you were playing for.

Oh, and another similrity ... The way our team fields reminds me of a bitter-sweet term we had for guys who couldnt get their hands to meet the ball ... Gaddha!