CRUEL GAME

Cricket is a cruel game both mentally and physically, whether it is played on the street or in the international arena. What happened to the Pakistan team recently gives ample proof of that.
It may seem ironic that while Pakistan cricket has suffered probably the most humiliating defeat since its inception, and the staunchest of cricket fans have turned away from it, we(our group) have suddenly spurred an interest in it after all these years.
Well, it wasn’t exactly everyone’s idea. It was Bashir who invited us all to have a cricket match in his ‘gulee’(street). We were sceptical at first, but then decided, what the hell; we don’t have anything better to do.
So on the agreed day, which was today, I and Arshad went first to Sahir’s house; a two bus long arduous journey, where we had lunch and caught up with old times for an hour or two, and then it was off to Bashir’s house in Sahir’s car. That dumbass was sleeping when we got there and didn’t have a respectable bat (thankfully Sahir had decided to take his) and or even a ball. And then it took ages for him to get a ball and tape, and then wrap the tape around the ball. For people who are not familiar with this practice, people in the subcontinent don’t use the standard hardball in their game. For one, we don’t have that many grounds to play cricket being a third world country and all, and the handful that are there are overcrowded. A single ground holds 5-10 matches at any given time, so that’s how bad the situation is; you’re gonna get someone seriously injured if you use that ball in such places. Plus it is costly if you opt for that ball; you’re then going to have to have the proper kit to go with it; helmet, pads, gloves and the most important shield, the guard. So we usually make do with a tennis ball. For that you only require an inexpensive bat. For wickets, we had a chair at one end and a couple of big stones at the other. The crease was drawn with a stone. That’s your standard street cricket in this part of the world. Plastic tape is wound around the ball to make the ball harder so that it does not travel a great distance when hit. Mostly the tape is wrapped around the ball just once, but if you wanna get tough, you get a second wrapping as well. There are many other arrangements you can get with this wrapping business. You can leave a small portion of the ball unwrapped to make the ball seam around when it lands on that patch. You can also get a crude seam etched with the help of the tape. So with all this, we get a ball which is relatively less lethal. I use the word relative because it can still wreak minor havocs. It can break windows of houses pretty efficiently (that’s because those streets are the narrow lanes between the houses in the residential district) but most importantly it can hurt your manhood literally. You must have seen in the movies people kicked in the groin wincing in pain, or the cricket matches where a batsmen goes down after having been hit there in spite of wearing a guard. Let me tell you guys, it really hurts! It is instantaneous pain which hits you like a sledge hammer. The world ceases to exist for you; all that remains is the pain. That’s how disoriented you become, and it doesn’t subside that easily.
I can still remember the first time I was hit there. I was hardly 6 or 7 years old, I and a friend of mine were playing with a hardball. Yep. I had got dad to buy me one after some intense persuasion even when I was that young. It wasn’t your usual hardball with seam and all, but it was rock hard nonetheless. In the midst of my batting, for some reason I told him to leave the hard one and bowl a couple of deliveries with the taped ball. So tape ball it was. Just two deliveries after the ball change, the bombshell dropped on me. Yep, the ball hit me squarely in the nuts, and the world turned upside down on me. It was the most intense pain I had experienced at that time.Even back then as young as I was, I never used to cry; it was instilled in my psyche that men dare not cry lest they be branded as sissies. Keeping this in mind, I fought with all my willpower to fight back the tears, but the pain was too overwhelming to resist, and so by the tine my mother came out (the match was played in our outer compound), my tear-stricken face was redder than a beetroot, and I was producing barely audible wails of an animal caught in a snare, still fighting to keep my composure lest some pal of mine happen to walk by our house and hear me cry. That just couldn’t happen. It was bad as it was hurting my dick, a blotch on my honour would have been too much to live with.
So my mother gently took my inside and asked what had happened. (The friend had vanished while I was writhing in agony). I told her the story and she took a look at my genitals which appeared to be even redder than my face. I can’t recall what happened next; whether I got any treatment or any lecture on being careful the next time. This much I remember that I didn’t get any scolding.
Let me also assure you guys that you just don’t get used to this type of injury and pain. Every time you get hit there, it’s a new experience altogether. So now you know why this game is cruel. I know rugby and American football are crueller, even barbaric, but that’s mostly in the physical sense. How would you feel if you toil hard 8-9 hours a day for five consecutive days and then are handed a scathing defeat which is going to haunt you for the rest of your life. And now make that two such defeats. Know what I mean? It’s the most psychologically debilitating game. No wonder Inzamam has become a disturbed man. Go through my last entry to get that update.
And we on the street play it even tougher, just to offset the impact of a ‘softer’ ball (which can still screw your balls). For instance, instead of the standard 22-yards, we had a 16-17 yards ‘street pitch’. To make it spicier, two hits on the body struck you out. On top of that, anything goes; you can fire as many bouncers as you like. So you’ve got to have good survival skills to make it as a batsman in such games.
And now in this backdrop, consider me playing cricket after two years! In fact most of us were, except for Sahir who plays every now and then including hard ball matches. I was pretty rusty, like most of the others but not that bad. Batting came back to me pretty soon. That’s got more to do with listening to commentary intently all these years than anything else. If you strip out all the hype, and fall back on the basic, it’s pretty simple, provided that you have played enough cricket. Keep your eyes on the ball, get your leading foot in line with the ball, let the ball come to you instead of going after it and then just let the bat caress the ball. If you have executed all the motions correctly, the gentle but steady swing of your bat coupled with good timing will speed up the ball on its way to whichever direction you hit it. I did it like they are taught in the coaching manual, and it was pretty effective. They kept me feeding over pitched stuff and I just kept it hitting all along the ground. Well, not for long. They soon discovered my weakness. Whenever a right handed bowler came round the wicket, and bowled on my legs, I got my footwork all tangled up and a hit on the body was curtains for you. Thats how they got me each time.
Bowling, however, was a different matter altogether. My bowling was pathetic to say the least. A bowler of my height is suppose to take advantage of it and dish out respectable bouncers and yet the only thing I could manage to get was a niggling pain in my upper back stretching all the way to my neck. It’s strange though, bowling fast is supposed to exert stresses on your lower back. I guess I’m a one of a kind case. And yeah, the discomfort still remains as I write all this down. So much for aerobic exercises and strength training.