The short form of cricket being the flavour of the season,I am posting an old story on this theme written almost a decade back for readers who had not followed my blog then
The cricket season is in full swing with annual
T20 tournament being played across the country drawing everyone to the grounds or
the TVs whichever was convenient. The schools were closed for summer vacation.
I see daily from the porch of my apartment about a dozen young boys in the age
group ranging from nine to fifteen playing cricket in the large vacant space of
my housing complex. The sun may be scorching at 40 degrees Celsius but the boys
are at the ground by 11am undeterred by the sweltering heat. A few wore over sized county caps while most were bare headed. Only some boys had shoes
while the rest played with or without chappals, mostly Hawaii. They played with
three stumps of irregular heights on one side and a bamboo stick doing the duty
of a stump at the bowler’s end. They used old tennis balls as they had no money
to buy a regular cricket ball. There were two pairs of pads with one pair being
smaller than the other. The wicket keeper had to be content with torn and
frayed gloves. For the timid among the boys, an old hand glove was available but
rarely used. None of these deficiencies dampened their soaring spirits or muted
their loud appeals during the game.
They adopted a shortened version of T20 format by
dividing the number of available boys into three teams and played 6 overs each.
They christened themselves with equally high sounding names though they lacked
the colourful uniforms or the smiling faces of celebrities to own and patronize
the teams. Luckily they had common cheer leaders for all the teams from urchins
of less than 7 years with or without shirts aping the lusty movements of the
regular cheer leaders we see on the TV. There was the unfortunate incident of
one mother pulling away her 5 year old girl from the cheer leaders’ team for
what she considered an obscene movement of the child’s posterior.
As I was watching daily from the porch of my apartment,
I saw one fat and short boy sitting alone under a tree beside an improvised
score board. I have never seen the boy playing on any single day. I called him
and asked him his name and why he was not joining others in the fun.
Amidst sobbing he replied, “I am Sumitkumar. I
keep asking my friends to include me in any of the teams but they refuse asking
me to look after the scoreboard. They keep telling me that I am an owner like
Sharukh Khan or Preity Zinta and should stay in the pavilion with dignity as
they do.
“This is grossly unfair. Each one of you can
take care of the score board by turn. What is this nonsense of you being an
owner? Call the boys right now. I will have this matter sorted out,” I said
angrily.
“Uncle, it could be because I am a Gujarati boy
and my Tamil is not that good,” he added to buttress his case.
I felt it was unfair to exclude a colony boy on
silly grounds and called three older boys from among those who were playing.
“Why are you excluding Sumitkumar? I learn he
is benched daily. Is it because he is from another part of the country? If
there are thirteen players, let one sit out by turn to look after the score
board. If you people behave like this, I would see that the ground is not used
for playing cricket,” I said in feigned anger
The boys said in chorus, “No Uncle, though a Gujarati he can speak Tamil as fluently as any of us and can even swear in filthy manner. We have not excluded him for his being Gujarati but because he is the owner of all the teams. Owners do not play.”
I got
annoyed and shouted “What rubbish are you saying? What owner? Include him in
the game or I will not allow you people to play here anymore.”
The boys pleaded “Uncle, kindly listen to us. The
bat, stumps, pads and gloves belong to him. That is why he is the owner.”
I shouted “Are you not ashamed? The boy is
giving you all the equipment for you to play with. Without them you cannot play
at all. Yet you do not have any sense of gratitude?”
The boys again said in one voice “Uncle, he is
not giving them free. He collects a rent of Rs.10 per day. It is actually high for us but he would not reduce the amount.”
When I looked at Sumit, he hung his head down
as if to confirm what was said. “I have considered your points. Henceforth
Sumit would collect Rs5 per day and he should be included in one of the teams. Score
board would be taken care of one of you by turn. Sumit will arrange to get a
good fourth stump instead of a bamboo stick. Since
you are playing with tennis ball, there is no need for batting pads or gloves
for batsmen.” I concluded
That compromise
left everyone happy including Sumit who remembered that T6 tournament too had a commercial angle.
