Cricket is my favourite game. I started my cricketing career when I was about ten. For the first few years, my cricketing exploits have been limitted to what is known as 'Gali Cricket', 'Para cricket', et al, where the rules of the game are strikingly different from the normal form of the game which we watch on tv. The rules include dismissals like 'one drop one hand', which signifies that if the ball is caught one handed after a single bounce after hiting the bat, the batsman is out. The other popular dismissal is when the ball crosses the boundary without pitching, or hits the wall directly, whichever may be the case depending on the field of play. While the former makes the game interesting, keeping the batsmen on their toes in an otherwise batsman friendly environment, the latter rule arises chiefly from necessity...it is difficult to find the ball if it goes too far. This is the case for smaller grounds, or where the playing area is confined to a small piece of flat land available between several surrounding houses.

Our 'field' conformed to the last description. All my cricketing antiques were limitted to this small lawn till I was sixteen. It was here that I was dubbed with the title of 'Jadeja' (then an upcoming star, and known for his brilliant fielding) mainly for the enthusiasm with which I dived around for the ball, irrespective of whether I stopped it ultimately, or not.

I started to play in the 'bigger arena' when I joined a new school for std XI. (My old school had neither a playground, nor XI or XII standards!) At once I began to discover my hidden talents. For one, I could bowl as fast as anyone else, probably faster. This pertinent fact failed to impress my playmates however, since I seldom finished the over in less than 15 deliveries. As a result, I was not considered the ideal bowler, the captain of the team would look up to, when faced with a situation of having to defend ten runs in the last over. As for batting, I developed my own style there. The field had a peculiar shape with the thirdman boundary being much closer than the rest. I found this fact to my advantage, since I could nudge and cut the ball through that region, using the bowlers pace, and score as fast as anyone else. At one point of time, my 'slip' shots became every bowlers nightmare, and everytime I came to bat the majority of fielders would be shifted to that region. In fact in the last match that I played in that ground, throughout my innings (of 2 balls) nine fielders where placed in the slip and thirdman region, with a lone fielder watching birds at the legside boundary. I still hit a boundary through those nine fielders, before getting out caught in one of their hands.

In college, I no longer found this kind of play advantageous. I started hitting over the bowlers head. During these days, I started paying more attention to my fielding. I was undoubtably the worst fielder in school, but managed to pull myself up to average in college. I had discovered one intriguing feature about my fielding quite early. While I could easily reach and hang on to overhead catches single-handed (that is with one hand), I invariably missed any high catch which I tried to take using both hands. This is still true.

I have played some cricket after joining the company I am in presently. Here, I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of players, who are not much better than me.

The musings on cricket were triggered by an internal tournament which starts tomorrow. I feature in one of the teams from our group, as captain. The journey from 'Jadeja' in the small patch behind our house to captaining 'VRFAMouS' (We are famous / RF group and AMS group combined) has been quite eventful and full of highs and lows. It's rather pleasant to think back and remember all the interesting occurances that I have experienced in the course of this chequered career.