Tag Archives: street cricket

Hand Cricket

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One more form of cricket that is played in schools is “Hand Cricket“. I played Hand Cricket during the years from my 6th grade till my 10th grade. Hand Cricket is a lot of fun and is very popular in schools in India. There is no need to carry the cricket bat, instead we use the hand as a bat. The rules are friendly to batsmen aiming to score more runs.The game is usually played on any play area. As Krishna bloggged earlier in “Reminiscences of Childhood Cricket“, different forms of street cricket allows you to create your own rules in any conditions and hand cricket is no exception.

Below are some of the rules we followed during our school days.

  • Only rubber ball or soft tennis ball is allowed.
  • Only spin and slow bowling is allowed.
  • Balls should be bowled with a minimum of one pitch, i.e., no full tosses are allowed.
  • Balls should be pitched at least 4-5 feet before the “handsman”.
  • The ball is usually played only on the leg side; no off side shots are allowed.
  • There are six to eight members per team.
  • Generally it is 5 overs game, but varies depending on the time availability.
  • Some runs are granted automatically based on hits and there are different rules for 4′s and 6′s.

Typically my school days always began with hand cricket. We always played hand cricket during the Lunch interval and also during the evening interval. We were crazy about playing during the free periods. The once a week ‘PT/games’ periods were also awaited occasions.

When I remember my past cherished memories, Hand Cricket will always have a place.

[Photo licensed from Jay Khemani]

Reminiscences of Childhood Cricket

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One more in our series on street cricket, here is the “Straight Drive” blog with a post about an office cricket tournament and talks about his childhood cricket too:

The match has contained all the aspects of a street cricket. Umpire was from the team which is batting. So, even the full-tosses which were going under the hip called as no-ball and the balls going under the bat called as wide. Long arguments for the way the other side has done the umpiring and tit-for-toe, everything reminded of my school days, where we just fight like this. I am just laughing at them still everybody loves to win the game at any cost. Thankfully, we have got stumps. In school, we used to draw the stumps at the walls and there will be arguments for whether the ball has hit the stumps. If the boy standing as umpire wants to bat, he will give out even though the ball didn’t the stump (lines drawn).

The greatness of cricket comes from the ability to create your own rules in any conditions. If you don’t have stumps, use sticks. If you don’t have sticks, use a box. If you don’t have a box, use a pillar. If you don’t have a pillar, use a wall. If you don’t have a wall, just invent a strike area and make rules about how many strikes are allowed. See, easy…

Cricket balls? No problem. Get a tennis ball, rubber ball, or even a bunch of golf or table tennis balls. Cricket bats? If you have a coconut tree, you can cut a branch and make a bat. Or use an umbrella. No proper ground? Invent rules about what a four or a six is. No onside sixes or you are out. Not enough people? Have last man batting or bat left-handed. 

I wonder how many other sports can make such rules on the spot.

[Photo licensed from rohit]

The No Runners Game

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Continuing on our posts on irregular cricket (tennis ball cricket and street cricket), we explore a specialty of such games: In many games, only one batsman will be playing and there will not be any runner at the other end. The reason, of course, is the lack of enough players for a full-fledged game. But here is where the fun starts:

  1. Although this may seem to reduce confusion caused by miscommunication between two batsmen, it creates more difficulties for the batsman for taking runs hit to an area behind the wicket. The batsman has to look backwards and then figure out if he should run. A runner would already have started down the pitch asking the batsman to go for a run.
  2. All the fielders have to just look at one batsman to run out. It is much easier to figure out who to throw the ball to, as you can easily see if the batsman will make his ground. In most games, it is understood that you need to run out the batsman at the end that he is running to, but sometimes you are allowed to run out the batsman at either end. The latter can be confusing because it can be tricky to note when a wicket is broken at one end and what ground the batsman has covered at the other end.
  3. Fielders do not need to change their fielding positions after each ball, like they would have to with different batsmen (especially a combination of left and right hand batsmen) at either end. Bowlers also have it simple. They don’t need to change bowling styles drastically.
  4. The batsman gets more tired quickly as they have to face every ball, instead of being able to rotate the strike and relieve the pressure.

So, you thought batting on the streets was too easy. Well, as you can see from the above, it is not quite so simple!

[Photo licensed from lamentables]

The Joys of Street Cricket

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If you are a cricket fan since childhood, chances are that you started playing street cricket, backyard cricket, beach cricket or anywhere but an actual cricket ground. The popularity of a game depends heavily on whether it can be played even if you don’t have all the fixings of the way it is played professionally.

For example, tennis and golf are watched much more heavily than they are played. However, soccer, football and cricket are heavily played even under conditions that seem unlikely. Someone who is unfamiliar with cricket will ask, how can you play in a very restricted area without expensive equipment and protection? But take a look at the children in the photo – they are really enjoying themselves playing in the middle of the road at what looks like high noon (no long shadows).

Street cricket means that you have to break as many rules as possible without actually inventing a new game. Some of these made-on-the-spot rules are

  • Use tennis or rubber balls so that you don’t need any protective gear at all. Also, in many poor countries, regular cricket balls can be expensive requiring even more costly bats. With these balls, you can use some conveniently shaped piece of wood or tree branch. Contradicting my previous point, tennis ball cricket has actually become a big sport in itself.
  • Because the ball can be lost slowing down the game, you may not be allowed to hit sixes or even boundaries. Hitting sixes may land in the property of some unfriendly house-owners. So if you accidentally do that, you may be given out. Think about it – Six and out off the same ball!
  • Nobody brings a tape to the playing area. So everyone takes the best guess at measuring 22 yards with their feet or some stick. Needless to say, it isn’t very accurate.
  • 3 uneven tree branches usually make for the batsman’s stumps. No bails. If the ball goes between 2 sticks, you have to honor the word of the wicketkeeper. At the bowler end, a large stone usually serves as the stumps.
  • Very often, there are only a few children available for a game, not even sufficient for a single cricket team. So everyone is made to field. If you have an odd number of children, one team gets to lose an additional wicket. There is no runner for the batsman, which means that he could be run out at either end (or maybe not – depends on who is making the rules). Usually the lazier fielders want to become the wicketkeeper, which actually is more work if you don’t know how to catch properly.
  • No slip, but usually you have a long stop to compensate for the incompetence of the wicketkeeper. Sometimes, this is avoided by disallowing byes and leg byes. LBW’s are a major controversial subject. They are usually disallowed, but some wise guys crowd the stumps which angers the bowler. The unwritten rule is that all three wickets must be visible to the bowler.
  • When you have a motley crew of children of different ages, some of them do know how to bowl over-arm. So you let them throw the ball instead. And if someone is too big for the rest of the group, they have to bat left-handed. The key thing in street cricket is participation. Everyone is given the opportunity to bat and bowl, even if they are terrible at it. So you will have the openers “retiring” after two overs so that the other children can bat.

Informal cricket was a lot of fun growing up. I remember we playing cricket inside an apartment. This was truly crazy because we played in the living room with lots of expensive equipment like TV’s and glass vases. And the parents of my friend let us – I have no idea what they were thinking. The rules of our game was to bat so that you can defend every ball earning a point each time. You get out if you are caught directly or on the first bounce.

Also, there was a time we played on some barren open area, left unused by the owner. Two sides of the area ended in a ditch and there was an open well without any walls very close to where the batsman stood. We bought a fisherman’s net to cover the well so that the ball wouldn’t fall in. But it was not strong to stop one of us from falling in. We had to be very careful when fielding close to it. We had some close shaves in that field, with one boy sliding over the edge and another tripping and getting his shoulder broken. Luckily no one fell in the well and got killed.

Professional international cricket is, rightly, the pinnacle of cricketing excellence. But for sheer fun and excitement, nothing can beat street cricket.

[Photo licensed from enygmatic]