42 - Games that I used to play in my Childhood - 2

3.       Cricket – Don’t worry, this is not the usual cricket that we see kids or adults play on the ground nowadays.  In those days, we used to invent new ways to play games.  Depending on the ground or a place that we could get to play, we used to play the following different forms of cricket.  And trust me, each one was fun to play!!  We used to play with tennis balls, as the cricket ball would have been dangerous😊. You will understand once you go through the following cricket games!! Moreover, tennis balls were cheaper!! 

a)    French cricket – Don’t know how the name came into being.  In this game of cricket, a small circle is drawn in the middle of the ground.  The batsman stands inside the circle and the stumps are his legs.  The bowler (the first one) stands at some 10 feet away and his aim is to hit the batsman’s leg to get him out.  The batsman will keep his bat before his legs, hiding it and try to hit the ball in whichever direction he wanted.  If he got a hit, he has to circulate the bat around his body. Each circulation will earn him one run.  He has to ensure that his feet stay together.  If his hit gets caught by someone, he was out.  If it is fielded by a fielder, the fielder has to throw the ball to the batsman’s leg again.  The batsman should stop his “run” and again hit the ball and again start his “run”!!  The batsman should turn in the circle without separating his feet so that he can face the next bowler. This process keeps on continuing till the batsman gets out, either by the ball hitting his leg, or he steps out of the circle by losing his balance or his hit gets caught.  This is a team game and the winner is declared by which team scored the highest number of runs.

b)  Hand cricket – Same as normal cricket, but instead of the bat, one used the hand for hitting shots!!  If tennis balls are not available, one can also use football or basket ball for this!!  For hitting sixes, you normally use the area just below your palm (the bone part), so that the ball can travel quite a distance!!

c)   Leg cricket – Same as normal cricket, but instead of the bat, one used the leg for hitting shots!!  The ball is thrown underarm so that shots can be hit. One can also spin the ball and it is upto the batsman to identify how the ball is spinning and accordingly hit the shots.  A variation in the leg cricket could be that the batsman should take a run with his runner on each ball.  In case he is not able to do so, he is considered “out”!!  Most of the batsmen will be run-out as they had to take a run each ball!!

d)   Only Backside Runs – This type of cricket is played if you get a very small and narrow area to play, like a gully (not the English gully but the Hindi gully😊).  The batsman can score only by hitting shots behind him.  And he “runs” for his runs.  In case he hits the ball straight and the ball crosses the bowler;s mark, he is declared “out”!!  Other general cricketing rules apply for this game – bowled, run-out, caught etc.

e)   Cricket with one different rule – One-tip-out!!  The fielder has a choice – he can either catch the ball normally to “out” the batsman, or he can wait for the ball to bounce once before catching😊.  This also is “out”!😊 A variation can also be made here. He has to catch the ball with only one hand to make the batsman “out”!😊

That’s all this time!!  More in the next blog…. Cheers!!

            Today’s Daffy Definition

            Patience – The virtue most needed just when we run out of it!!