Cricket- All the World’s a Pitch
June 1st 2012
It took IPL 4 seasons and a KKR to lift the trophy, for the cricket fever to finally bite my four year old daughter, Aarushi. After a brief stint at batting with her friend, my daughter decided that cricket was what she wanted all her life. So began a feverish hunt to find the right set of cricket paraphernalia. After trying out numerous bats finally the choice was made and Korum mall, in Thane ,reduced its inventory by one bat, a ball and a set of stumps. Our house was the chosen venue for the inaugural match. The rules for the game were framed quickly by my four year old,while I took serious notes of the same.
- 1000 runs if the ball touches the curtain
- 19 runs if the ball hits the two seater sofa and 3 runs if the ball finds its way to the 2 seater sofa
- Anywhere near the rocking horse , it was 5 runs.
Pity we don’t have curtains in the cricket ground else Sachin and Bradman would have piled a million runs. There was no need for a toss to decide who is going to bat first or rather “only bat”. Only “chote bache” know how to bat because if “bade log” bat then they would hit the fan and the ceiling would come down. Given the batting criterion and not risking any collapsed ceilings my daughter was handed over the bat and I walked towards the bowling stumps. In case you assumed, bowling out a 4 year old is a child’s play, let me describe the stumps, the bat and the ball. In the frenzy of identifying the perfect light weight cricket set, Mom had inadvertently selected rubber stumps,soft foam ball and a rubber bat.The stumps (and bails) were riveted to a pedestal. So how ever hard you hit at the stumps, it was impossible to topple it with a foam ball. Frozen water sank the ship but foam ball and rubber stumps are another matter. Once I did manage to do the impossible but was caught unaware that there was another rule which governed how a batschild could get out. I was probably paying more attention to how the runs could be scored and had missed out on this important rule. The rule states that the only way a batschild could get out is when the stumps get toppled, it should fall forward and not backward! Ball hitting the stumps and the stumps falling forward is probably something beyond the realms of modern day physics. It looked to me like a particle dynamics problem (on the trajectory of a thrown ball ) which would take another 350 years to be solved by an Indian born German school kid. So the batschild was at the batting crease throughout the morning , afternoon and evening and the bowler at the bowling crease, praying for a bad light or for an innings declaration.
Meanwhile the unmindful foam ball continued to whiz across the sofa, rocking horse and curtains;bringing squeals of laughter to its 4 year old hitter and unbound joy to the tired bowler.
1st June, 2012
