This post first appeared on Sportskeeda.
No sooner than the clock strikes the designated hour that
kids, even adolescents, start trickling in and soon the paltry area between two
buildings or the open parking lot lying in abeyance becomes the center of
commotion and clamor, much to the relief of kids who couldn't afford an
afternoon nap despite the repeated pleas of their mothers, lest they miss out
on the action.
Dead branches and bricks serve as stumps, with a solitary
piece of rock doing the needful at the bowler’s end. Lack of enough bats means sometimes the
non-striker runs for his life, er wicket, empty handed, and the batsmen are
again forced to meet midway through the pitch, if one can call that strip of
dust and stones a pitch, where the bat is handed over.
The batsman at the non-striker’s end also has to dispense of
his duties as a makeshift umpire, and is at the center of scandalous
accusations of corruption and partiality. Hell, even the players don’t add up.
Name calling takes up more time than the game itself in case
of brick-stumps. Because the imagined height at which the ball floated over
them is different for different players, leading to oblique reference to the
non-striker cum-umpire’s lineage.
