Cricket in our younger days!!

[hehehewalrus]

whenever some impatient guys flout these rules and smack the ball outside the playing arena, my response would be to bat for 60 balls without scoring a run!!

[jaiganes]

Ayya HHW!
For keeping "Gaaji" as a goal and a "dont care if team wins or not" attitude, you have just overtaken Sunil Manohar Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri as the "Gaaji mannan". One distict disadvantage of lack of facilities like dressing room in maidaan is, whenever a "Gaaji mannan" plays more than two overs immediately the players following him do a pitch invasion and "forcefully" retire him hurt so that equal opportunity of "gaaji" is achieved. I was blessed to have team mates who believed in communism for batsmen. There were other kinds of "Gaaji kings" who would run their partners out without hesitation if there was a threat of "farming the strike " arises!!! As for intra team rivalry is concerned, any run out is enough to get the game cancelled for the day. Whoever was losing, would make such a big ruckus over the runout to come out unscathed, with a game added to the "match abandoned" columnin their prestigious record!!!

ps: I am planning to start playing tennis ball cricket in BTM layout in Bangalore. Anyone care to join ? you walrus? are u upto it?

[geno]

"gaaji" adikkarathulathAN ellA payalkalum kuRiyA iruppAnunga!

Hey dudes! you guys have left out another type of "cricket ball"!!!

"Balls" made out of cycle tyre tube!!

We used to buy cycle tyre tube - and cut a part of it into pieces of rubber "rings".

Then we would roll up balls of paper to sufficient "size" and "strength"! and then tie those small rings of rubber - around this paper of ball! until it becomes completely covered with no paper seen thru!

Then we would compress it unti we are satisfied about the "ball"!! then lo!!

Gay abandon with half a day of cricket play with that tyre tube cricket ball!!

[hehehewalrus]

Geno,
what is the contour of the ball? How will it bounce unless it is properly spherical?

Even Supertone/Regal was good for backyard cricket. In addition to the prodigious swing, the other advantage is that if you are too tired, one hefty whack will send the contraption buzzing out of the compound!

JG,
About Gaaji hoarding, I was not referring to team cricket. In team cricket though, I am a genuine Bevan - keep the nonstriker on his toes, by pushing towards the Nehras and Inzamams in the field, and pinching ones and twos. It is a given that after 2-3 dot balls, my next one would be a single/run out

During 10 overs a side cricket, if I am not opening, my best bet to get a decent bat is to stand close in and field like a tiger. MY top order will ultimately collapse

JG, i am no longer in blore.

[hehehewalrus]

JG,
are you the same BTM Layout Jaiganesh who is a fan of poetry and learnt classical violin?

Adapaavi, I think I have talked to you 2 years before!

confirm your identity pls. Let me make sure if you are already in my yahoo messenger

[geno]

walrus

>> what is the contour of the ball? How will it bounce unless it is properly spherical? >>

We would "thattify" and "amukkify" that tube ball until we are satisfied that it is "spherical" enough!!!

It would last a few hours and then - the rings of tubes would be torn and fall-off!

Then we would prepare a brand new tube ball!

This we resorted to - if we slammed too many of the rubber or rubber cork balls out of the compund into an open sewer - which was there!!!

I hated 10 overs-a-side game! all periya pasanga bullied us and "gaaji" themselves - leaving us to run after balls in felding! :lol"

[jaiganes]

Walrus ayya!
Nyaan avarillai!! I live in Banashankari 3rd stage and there is no proper ground for cricket there, so that is why BTM layout le shift. As far as geno's mentio of rubber tube balls are concerned, I do remember having played with such balls a couple of times. The problem with that was the lifetime for such a high speed particle was significantly less and the knitting process required much more deftness and skill which we brash kids never had in our life!!! What I do remember is having played with cloth and seed stuffed ball made by a friend in chengal pattu. I remember vividly how he painstakingly made a ball from rubber rings, some Jack fruit seeds, remnants of a torn rubber ball and a lot of cotton with some road tar. The molten tar would harden around the rubber rings and the jack fruit seeds and then he would wound yarns of the "janapari naar" Jute twines around it. The next layer would by some rags of cotton, followed by sponge cotton (or surgical cotton), final rag tightly strewn around the seam. The ball was a little heavy and the bounce was low, so a lot of running had to be done. This guy who made the ball was from an under preivileged family laying roads. But all these things never registered in our minds when the goal was to play cricket!! Truly what a sport!!! Apart from just cricket, the whole process of preparing for a game in once back from school was exciting. Imagine cycling against heavy traffic in Papermills road in an Avon cycle!!! If at all my mom had known what way I was taking to the ground to play cricket, sh would have never allowed me!!

[hehehewalrus]

How can you all play with such balls, which afford no swing or spin? Best was the Joy ball which takes tremendous swing and spin.
After 1992 world cup, when Walsh and Aquib Javed made the slower ball famous, it was a godsend for the Venkatesh Prasad-like trundlers in our colony to dismiss the batting giants. A well disguised slower ball would be enough to dismiss a dasher already halfway through his shot.

Naatla Jaiganeshgal-oda thollai jaasthi ayiruchu

[jaiganes]

Joy ball definitely turns and swings like bananas in headingley for sure! But the problem is it is effective only indoors or within the compound wall boundaries of home. So ideal to play with in case of family functions and you are confined for a good whole day. As far as Jaiganesh's are concerned, am yet to encounter one apart from occasional bold glances inthe mirror!!! Legends have it that people of the point to point bus from Chengalpattu to Chennai in early eighties were haunted by a kid who chatted their sleep away with non stop nonsense!!! Coming back to cricket, the slide cricket is more ensoyable!! After N.E.Monsoon, grounds not having fully drainied (didn't have money to bring in super soppers!!), any cricket in the wet outfields provided some of the most exciting experiences in fielding . Recently finished reading a book on Sir Gary Sobers by Trevor Bailey!! interesting read that!!

[Hemant Trived1]

As a legacy of Raj Cricket , having been broughtup in Gujarat near Rajkot, we were introduced to cricket ball and complete cricket gear from a very young age.
Till I was 12, I too had my sharte of Tennis ball and what Mr. Geno said about cycle tube ball.
Cycle tube ball had funny bounce and its rubber rings used to fly when pitched or a shot was hit.
I recollect a very funny incident.
Our village team had one policeman (Only policeman of the village) called DILUBHA.
He used to keep wickets as he thought that running behind the ball was too much beneath his dignity.
He had a funny methodology of keeping wickets.
He would crouch behing stups with wide spread legs and keep the wicket when slow bowlers were to ball.
When fast bowlers were bowling, he would stand three or four paces behind the stumps.

One day it so happened that he forgot to ask the visiting team about the bowler's speed.
One particular bowler who had a slow three or four pace run up, bowled very fast !!
But this we knew after he bowled.
After the slow bowler had completed his over, the next bowler came to bowl and as usual, Dilubha squatted behing the stumps with his wide spread legs with knees resting on ground. (He was fairly tall)
The ball came so fast and low due to loose earth that it missed his lazy action of collecting and banged him on his ball**s.
No need to say that Dilubha fainted after a lion like roar and was rushed to the the village doctor as he could not breath due to impact and pain.
He was bed ridden for about a month and walked gingerly for about another couple of months.
No need to say that he never played cricket after that.!!