So not touched bat and ball since September last year. We wanted to make sure we get to play some cricket on the chaupati maidan come Sunday morning. This is where Jaidev Unadkat would come to play his cricket as a youngster, not that he is much older now.
Prior to arriving on Porbandar, I had called up my uncle and told him to make sure a fixture has been arranged for the week we'll be there. He told me not to worry as he doesnt miss a single week.
6:45 and my uncle comes to wake us up. We get ready and head out to the ground. I'm sure you have a picture in your mind of what our cricket match looked like, but this was totally different.
The stumps are set up on an extremely dusty and gravel-filled surface. And we set about getting some practice to get used to the conditions and quickly realise this isn't like the cricket we play back home. The ball is a hard ball made of rubber with a lot of bounce and the surface doesn't help much; a surface which could be mistaken for a sheet of corrugated metal.
We set up our strip and on either side there are other teams setting up their strips. As the teams put their fielders out, you quickly see this is going to lead to a lot of confusion and possibly injures. With matches going on all around you balls would come flying in from all angles. But we took our chances.
We got off to a great start having the opposition 4-5 in 3 overs.
Just then what we feared happened; the batting teams players all sit at the backward point position while waiting to bat. A ball come flying in from a nearby game and struck him on the eye causing a great deal of pain, as you can imagine after being struck by something that weighs about 150g. Luckily for him, there are people selling pouches of cold water which he was able to keep on his eye, to prevent it swelling up.
We went out there with no rules explained to us, so we were stunned and confused as we went along the game and found there are no LBWs, byes and leg byes don't count, the opposition will call you for wides on anything that isn't in line with the stumps.
Having bowled out the opposition for 58, we set out to bat and that's where you see how difficult it is to bat, the ball doesn't travel anywhere unless its smashed from the middle of the bat and you can't tell who the fielders are amongst the 100s of people playing.
Overall a great experience. Looking at what part this type of cricket plays in the development of Indian cricket; firstly the fielding, along the ground, as the surface it jagged, you can't easily attack the ball, you can't dive as you'd just cut yourself up. Catching can be just as difficult as a rubber missile travelling at speed slaps into your hands hard.
Batting allows for 2 kinds of big shots pulling anything short as it sits up and drilling straight anything pitched right up, everything else is very hard to get away.
While bowling its about bowling good lengths, could be a reason why India doesn't produce out and out pacers.
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