The Anatomy of Gully Cricket

India's unofficial national sport is unarguably, Cricket. This game of batsmen, bowlers and fielders needs no introduction as this is a way of life, a religion and a passion for the whole of India. 

Ever since Kapil Dev led his pack of underdogs to an amazing victory over the invincible West Indies in the 1983 Prudential World cup, India has taken to cricket like a bear takes to honey. There is so much of it these days, but there was so much of it ever since the first world cup win. A waning hockey era and utter lack of focus on other sports, made cricket grow like a weed. The Indian people had accepted this Englishman's game as their own and played it with feverish fervor. 

Fame, Success and  lots of money were baits for scores of youngsters who plunged into the rat race for selection into the national team. Cricket was no longer a game for the elite and the affluent. Boys from all strata of society pulled all stops to get hold of a cricket kit and to be coached by an ex state or a national level player. Brands hooked up with star cricketers for endorsing their products at sums previously unheard of in the world of Indian sports. Affiliations with Bollywood stars, regular appraisals of performances in the media and sometimes even interviews in glossies had made Cricket a very glamorous career option indeed. 

This post is not any success story of how a boy from a middle class neighborhood worked hard and made it big on the international scene. It is about my experiences a boy during my acclimatization with the game of cricket. 

The traditional games and sports of India took a back seat when kids of all ages who were able to stand and speak were out on the streets with bats & balls. Ingenuity was clearly visible when the boys made bats out of whatever material available, their passion fueled their inventor instincts and thus exam pads, wooden planks from the carpenter shops and sometimes even just hands, tennis balls were conveniently adapted for use in cricket and then local entrepreneurs started manufacturing 'rubber balls' & 'sponge balls' to cater to the huge demand for cricket equipment. Arrangements for the wickets were the most ingenious of all. A neighbor's concrete compound wall would act as the canvas when an image of 3 wickets with bails were drawn using charcoal or by etching the outlines with stones.

This was the advent of 'Gully Cricket'. Gully is the transliteration of the Hindi 'Gali' which means lane.  Cricket was now being played across every nook and corner of the country and all that was needed was a lane, no matter how narrow or wide, a bat - make shift or real, a ball - preferably tennis (Cosco!) and some bricks or a neighbor's compound wall for the wickets. 

Of course, the boundaries would be marked by the electric pole at the corner or the intersection (cross). Wild bushes and fences would also act as permanent fielders. Gully cricket consists of 'players' of all age groups and the seniors obviously have the lion's share. They always bat first, keep the wickets (this involves less running around) and even bowl first. The younger members of the team have to 'earn' their right to hold the bat. Fielding, however is a domain left to the smaller kids who act as mere ball boys to retrieve the ball from inside a neighbor's house or the rainwater drain or to tread down a small precipice. 

There are no umpires in this form of the game and a majority vote decides the fate of the batsman. Usually, the senior members who own the stuff i.e. the bat, the ball and sometimes the wickets carry a lot of clout and do not let go of their position easily. Tempers run sky high and there ensues very heated arguments on the legitimacy of the delivery, the readiness of the batsman and a very cricket text book observation of the field placement. 

If a junior member of a team is having a particularly fine day and is coming down heavily on the more experienced senior bowlers of the opposite team, then such an over, normally to consist of 6 deliveries, goes on till the batsman gets out and may sometimes extend to even 18 deliveries for a single over. The senior rests only when he scalps the wicket of the 'in form' junior. 

The team selection is all the more interesting. The 2 senior most are natural choice for the skipper position. Then they start selecting their mates from the crowd by method of elimination. Thus a team is formed. Sometimes when the teams are unevenly balanced, then one of the player would be appointed as the 'joker' - the chose one who would bat, bowl and field for both sides! On a few lucky days I have had the privilege of becoming the Joker and how I enjoyed wielding the bat twice!

In gully cricket, the normal choice of both sides was to bat first irrespective of any situation. We all love to bat. Bowling is only for losers. However, a formality of selection through a toss is done. Kids in India usually do not carry any money on them when they come out to play (well at least we did not when we used to play). The toss was a more crude form of guessing the hand. A kid would be entrusted the task of picking a small pebble and hide it in one of his palms. The captains then had to guess the clenched fist that possessed the pebble. The one that made the right guess got to bat first! 

Depending on the number of players one had on either teams, the game would have a single batsman or two batsmen as per the original game format. A severe shortage of bats would mean the 2 batsmen sharing one bat which would in fact be used by the other team as well on their turn. A small internal fight of sorts would ensue as to who would bat first. It was an unsaid rule that the one who owned the bat would also do the honors. 

For the cricket illiterates, a brief intro on the field areas - straight, onside and offside. Gully cricket was necessarily onside friendly since it involved smashing the ball into oblivion.  Left handed players were unheard of & very rarely gully cricket witnesses left handed batsmen. Offside play required more skill and gully cricket is not about the display of one's knowledge on cricketing shots. Secondly, shortage of players would mean members of both teams would keep the field while 2 batted and one bowled. In cases where the batsman had to be ruled out on the basis of a light nick to the bat, the decision would be in favor of the person who was more loud and assertive. Indiscretion is common and in fact no one feels slighted at such appeals. 

A bad over would yield the bowler a mouthful of choicest rebukes from each and every member of the team. Childish behavior at its best. Kids are very sore losers and try all means to avoid the situation. Protests against blatant cheating, over counting the scores, under counting the number of deliveries bowled etc would charge up the atmosphere in the neighborhood and sometimes even the adults join in the melee to support their kids' teams. 

At the end of the evening's game, the victorious team would break into an impromptu jig much to the dismay of the losers who would exchange cold stares, may be insinuating a harder comeback the next time they meet to play. Loyalties keep changing in gully cricket and kids take sides of the winning captains. At the end, it is all good as it is a game of cricket between friends and the results of the game are immediately forgotten and the kids go home looking forward to the next day when they get to enjoy their most favorite pastime. 

My past few posts is an attempt at keeping my nostalgic journey alive and in turn I intend to rekindle the child hood memories in all of my adult friends who are so engrossed in making money and risk forgetting these amazing moments of their lives. 

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago

- J Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist, quoted in Pearls of Wisdom. 

The Water Cooler & Vending Machine Dialogues

Grape vine : A person to person method of spreading information, rumors & gossips by unofficial or informal means mainly through conversations. 


Nearly 6 years into corporate life has made me realize that this is not an urban legend and grapevines do exist and its seeds are in fact sown and then cultivated by the organisation itself. Grape vines are the best and lowest cost means of creating a speculation. These are unofficial snap polls usually sponsored by the management to get raw unedited opinions of its employees. They work two ways, release and retrieve. 

This has been the oldest means of internal espionage and brings about a great deal of 'earnest' opinions about senior managers and the big man and the organisation as a whole. The grapevines are of course members of the management's carefully chosen inner circle and they are most active at the time of periodic performance appraisal systems or when there has been a major departmental reshuffle. 


It is plainly impossible for the untrained eye to identify the grapevine, since the conversations are very cunningly camouflaged in harmless banter. 


Now since we have warmed up to the idea of this novel management concept, let us now move on to our personal experiences with the 'Grapevine'!! The 10 minute breaks that we get in the pre and post lunch sessions are those periods of the day when we all go out in quite large groups depending on your age in the organisation, towards that corner space where 'they' have installed the water cooler and the coffee vending machine. It is a time to relax and to let your hair and your guard down. It is the time to provide your peers a descriptive feedback and an honest opinion about your meeting with the boss in the morning. 

Well, it is one's birth given right to ridicule one's boss. No matter how well or bad the meeting would have gone in the morning, the poor chap is in for a royal spanking. What is a good banter without getting your friends to laugh about your boss jokes? Call it peer pressure or a conformist attitude, but your wicked creativity goes into overdrive and you start describing your boss and paint a picture of him with a pointed tail, a pitchfork and goat horns growing from either sides of the head. Maybe the caffeine in the cappuccino cup you are holding eggs you to go on further and take deep digs at the boss. You are the 'It' guy and you are easily welcomed into the 'gang'. Imagine you are the grapevine and this is the most easiest way in. You unload a lot of crap on the boss and you are a cool guy. Your peers slowly start opening up about things that even the boss did not know about himself. This is true 360 degree feedback - 100% raw and uncut. 


One also talks about the management policies and how uncomfortable they make it for the employees to work. Some of the feedback are to be taken and improved upon and some are just to be thrown in the can. Generally the majority are unsatisfied and have a lot of complaints about almost everything. Some people do not like the taste of the coffee, some do not like the faucet in the restrooms, some do not like the acute absence of pretty ladies in the office and some do not like the attitudes of their seniors. Very rarely do we come across group discussions near the water cooler where the majority have very good words for the organisation or the boss. It is the 'Grass is greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome that is very clearly visible during water cooler conversations. 


Water cooler conversations are not restricted to complaints about the management and the boss, they extend to complaints about the traffic situation, the national cricket team's present form, the state of affairs of the country's politics, incredible tax structures and a bad plot of a much anticipated Bollywood film. During such conversations, you observe that your colleagues who are usually stressed out and deeply engrossed in their work, have a life out of the office. You are enlightened about the ongoing infrastructure projects across the city, the statistics on the last 6 matches of the Indian cricket team and a very neat expert analysis on the top batsmen and bowlers' current form and what they must be doing to improve and put the team on a winning track again. It is just amazing to find out that the national selectors know very little about cricket when compared to your next - cubicle - neighbor. 


I wouldn't name him, but I had this colleague of mine who, as far as I go, is the greatest staunchest follower of the common wealth game of cricket. This guy is a near fanatic and his interest in the gentleman's game is so intense that he had the audacity to follow even the much ignored first class cricket played at the domestic circuit. This knowledge trove of his came to light during many of our water cooler conversations and I still fondly recall the twinkle in his eyes whenever there was a victory for the Indian side. 


Water cooler conversations are equivalent to the best shrinks where you can offload your frustration and stress. Sometimes you even get useful advises and suggestions to come out of your situation. Discussing the problems with a close group of friends who understand your work and your environment is a great deal to beat stress and come out trumps. 


How often have we not come across a situation when we are going through a particularly rough patch at work and have felt victimized. Our vending machine interactions with colleagues reveal that we are not alone in feeling so low and many have already passed and are passing through the same patch. This sense of belonging to a group gives you great peace of mind. I sincerely hope I am being able to put across this point to you all. 


Coffee vending machines are a great place to socialize with seniors too as they also need a place to unwind & to recharge. 'Inside' information such as the probable date of starting the much awaited performance appraisal process along with additional info on the list of probable promotees are extracted from routine friendly conversations with senior members who are necessarily part of the grapevine. 


It is a great misnomer that only ladies gossip. Men are known to gossip as much and sometimes even more. The term curious George has a broad perspective. Water cooler conversations are all about men - grown up men gossiping about the most innocuous of issues. A colleague's new car or the new wife, the boss's daughter and even sharing a joke you received over SMS which you cannot discuss anywhere else. 


Work is an extension of our college days and these precious 2 x 10 minute breaks provide valuable time to get nostalgic and reconstruct the great fun we had with our friends. Human Resource Development is a function in most of the organisations that focus on holistic growth of the employees and team building is one of the responsibilities of HR. Organisations spend hundreds of thousands on team building exercises at out of office locations, usually in the wilderness and river side camps. However, water cooler & vending machine corners provide a low cost team building opportunity. 


Friendships are fostered and pent up stresses are released at these pristine places of uninhibited conversation. A buzzing water cooler corner makes any office, truly a great place to work in.