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| Sunday, 9 May 2004 |
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Sports |  |
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Delightful diversities of cricket Human nature, being what it is, seeks variety. The quest for variety has been evident from time immemorial. Its flame flickered in the heart of the Cave Man who took possession of as many women as he could guard with his brute force - which meant warding off the incursions of the other Cave Men on his preserves. This quest continues to haunt the human race even today in all spheres of life, culminating in the search for worlds behind and beyond space. So also in cricket. Ever since the advent of this game the cricketing mind has been exploring the possibilities of introducing varieties in it. The game which started with men who were strangled in bow-ties; tight coloured trousers and slippery brown or black boots have since achieved freedom and slipped into comfortable robes of white, doing away with whiskers and side-burns in the process. The bat which once looked like the Cave Man's blunder-buss is now a streamlined blade of the purest willow, a thing of beauty, and is, therefore, wielded even by the beautiful sex, which, being traditionally adept in the use of the rolling pin both in the kitchen and elsewhere in the home to keep intact the reins of power, has no difficulty in showing skill with it. A spinning saucer! The bowling which began underhand grew in stature and became overhand and then, in course of time, the poor ball was subjected to different varieties of spin, swing, and swerve. To this were added the cutters, which make the wielders of the willow cut capers at times, and the bumpers, which make the batsmen swing and swerve from their batting position and, if the contact of the bumping ball is good and square, have bumps at the place of contact, see stars in stark sunshine and start spinning(quite immaterial and irrelevant which way the object spins) on heels and, after some little fuss, be carried away on wheels. And when such spinning is seen, the scribes start spinning their stories of how they saw on a wicket that yielded no spin, an object that nevertheless spun there on like a spinning saucer from space. Likewise varieties have been introduced in field-placing, defensive, offensive, attacking and, depending upon the mood of the skipper, it can be neither of the above three varieties, namely, "indifferent", and it is after the employment of this last variety of field-placing that the genius who invents it finds him self as having had the last opportunity of exhibiting such skill! Some of the varieties that have been introduced into certain departments of the game have been discussed. Much could be said about the pitches, batsmanship, fielding, wicket-keeping, catching, umpiring grounds, drink-breaks, rolling of the wickets, etc. The subject, however, which I mean to deal with and develop here is the various varieties of cricket (as is evident from the heading of this article) that have come into existence with the passing of time. There is, of course, first and foremost, the top class variety, namely, Test cricket, which is played in the most relentless, ruthless manner on made-to-order wickets (prepared purely from a commercial point of view) and provides immense fun to the cricket fans just like a bleeding contender in a boxing bout does or a matador fighting a bull thrills millions of spectators. While the grim struggle goes on in the middle, it is relayed by radio, filmed, news-reeled and covered for the press by its chosen pundits of the game. Incidents are magnified and, even if they do not occur, they are readily manufactured on the spot and at the spur of the moment ( struggle for existence! ) and the interest kept alive. To a lesser degree the procedure of Test matches is gone through in Inter-State, Zonal, Inter-'Varsity and Inter-college games. In fact the pattern is the same in all competitive encounters. Interesting games The really interesting games (for the participants particularly) are the club matches or those that are played on the village green.In these games the skill and the finer points of the game are revealed almost always by word of mouth and the twist of the tongue. Here you hear the fantastic feats of cricket performed and while you listen to these tales with bated breath you begin to admire the hero more for his ability and capacity to consume beer rather than his skill at cricket. Meanwhile the game on the green goes on like a boat afloat a calm river-quietly, merrily, smoothly, except that occasionally you can feel the stir in the air even at the boundary line, caused by the swish of the bat of a breezy batsman, or the admonishing remark of the umpire who on adjudging a batsman lbw advises him loudly and clearly, "Why the hell didn't you use your bat; pads are meant for protection and not for batting!" While this happens in the middle, the stories in the pavilion under the influence of some stimulating beverage breed good fun and gradually the noses become red, atmosphere cheery, voices beery, visions bleary, bottoms weary and the prospects of fielding dreary. By the evening when the game ends a good time is had by all present. Inglorious uncertainties ! For all the varieties of the game described above, you require grounds, teams, umpires, etc. All this can be dispensed with if you get into your backyard and start bowling in right earnest. Here you can impart vicious spin, make the ball rise from a good-length spot dis-concertingly; you can bowl bumpers and beamers if you feel like doing so; in fact you can make the ball talk. If, in the process you break flower pots and cause devastation to the garden, your bowling being irresistible, (in the absence of a batsman) you can be sure of getting a good hammering nevertheless from your parents or wife, as the case may be. This therefore, is a dangerous variety of cricket and should be indulged in with great caution and care. Another dangerous variety of the game can be put into effect in your dressing room. All you require is a bat to play this game with. Stand in front of the mirror and transform yourself into a Headley, a Woolley or a Trumper and start your innings. If you feel like giving a demonstration of defensive play, imagine that you have been caught on a really bad wicket. Take your stance, be very alert, raise your bat (back-lift pointing towards fine leg, as per the text book) step back quickly (without landing into the waste paper basket) and bring the bat slowly forward perpendicular to the floor, with a very loose grip on the handle so that the ball after impact falls right near your feet. Very well done indeed ! Duck under the next one which is high and therefore harmless if you don't play it. Be at the wicket for some period. Allow the wicket to improve and then start executing delectable late-cuts and flowing cover-drives. Meanwhile the wicket further improves. Now is the time to unleash your fury. Indulge in a few hectic books and soaring sixes. You have in this game the advantage of watching your own strokes and thereby providing at least one spectator to appreciate the rhythm and mastery of your art. Do all this indeed but make sure that you do not smash up bulbs and shatter mirrors or vases; otherwise the game may prove rather expensive apart from disrupting harmony (if such a thing exists) at home. These are, indeed, some of the inglorious uncertainties of this type of cricket. Safest method Let us now come to the last variety of this game. To play this, you do not require any implements or any space. You can play this game while lying in bed or even in the bath-tub. But I would not advocate your indulgence thereof in bed, because when you hit the sack, and if you have done a day's honest work, it is time to have your well-earned rest and sleep. The other method of playing it in the bath-tub is also not recommended because getting into it at that stage of the day is likely to cause your reaching office late or, if you are not careful, even of getting drowned in your bath while hooking a ball off your nose. The safest method is to park yourself in an easy chair, close your eyes and fall into a reverie. In that position you can perform the most wonderful feats of cricket. You can, if you so wish, scroop up the famous Griffith yorker for a straight six or hit his fastest bumper with such terrific force and perfect precision straight back at him that before he is able to complete his bowling action, the ball gets him on his side rib. This is one way of disposing of the terror. If on the other hand, you do not feel like batting you can take up the leather yourself and get transformed into a spin bowler. Surely you could not like to bowl at any Tom, Dick or Harry. You cannot, therefore, do better than match your skill against Sir Donald G. Bradman of the thirties, when he was at the prime of his scoring spree. So the young Bradman is well set and the task of getting rid of him has been entrusted to you of your own free will. You are a right-handed off-spin bowler. The world knows you as such and you must take the great Donald by surprise. So you place all your fielders on the offside. Before you start your bowling run, Bradman thinks that it is going to be fun and there is a mischievous grin on his chin and you don't like it at all. Reverse googly You start your run up the wicket slowly, bring up your arm in the usual slow manner but at the last moment, with the flick of your wrist, you send down a fast and dead straight yorker on the leg stump. You know jolly well that with the mastery and the command that you possess the ball must hit the root of the leg stump-in fact you are aiming to uproot it ! But Bradman is not famous for nothing. Even in your reverie, which is designed and controlled by you, he shuffles his feet making room on the line of the leg stump, brings his bat down hurriedly from the direction of the gully on the ball and is able to send it hurtling to the mid-wicket boundary !! The crowd cheers, for there is not a single fielder on the on-side and a few jeers are also flung at you for your benefit. This infuriates you. No half-way measures can undo this Bradman who possesses the eyesight of a hawk and the wrists of steel. You have now decided to send down an unplayable ball, for your reputation is at stake. The next ball of yours is therefore a leg-break with an off-break action - an invention of yours, which nobody knows anything about (including yourself !). And in order to make the elimination of the great D.G.B. doubly sure you pitch this so wide on the leg side that even before the ball is pitched the umpire, in wanting to declare it a wide, is opening out his arms. But the ball pitches about two yards away from the stumps on the leg side, turns from there almost at a right angle, for it is a ferocious reverse googly. A la Bradman ! Meanwhile the ball turning from two yards on the legside has hit the side of the leg-stump and with the impact all the three stumps have been flattened down with their top ends facing the fielder at point. "Bowled him !!", goes up a roar from the crowd; the umpire is bewildered, the great Sir Donald petrified. However, reluctantly, he begins his walk back slowly to the pavilion. Typewriters begin to rattle and the telephones clatter. Your teammates rush to you. The crowd is cheering continuously. You find yourself on the crest of a wave. You feel like the great Chengiz Khan himself. Amidst all this uproar comes the ring of a familiar sound and it has the effect of shaking you up more than your unplayable ball had done Bradman. The reverie, the sweet sweet reverie, is brought to an abrupt end by the revered (and in some cases very much feared) wife (who else could have the audacity of smashing up this spell of superlative cricket!) "Get up", she says, "Don't just sit and snore; where are the groceries you had promised from the stores?" There can't be any "ifs" or "buts" against this imperious command. You get up from your chair and wend your way towards the grocer's stores in the fashion of Bradman's walk back to the pavilion ! Are you sorry ? Of course not ! You have already bowled an unplayable ball and bowled Bradman at his best and when he was well-set. Also you cannot forget that it would be well-nigh impossible to bowl over Bradman at home - even in a hundred reveries !!! |
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