The story of the only time I played cricket in 2020

 As much as I love cricket, I have to admit I suck at playing it. I always have. This bit of information is important for the story that I am about to tell. A story of a friend. A story of a friendship. This short story began a long time ago in my life. I was probably twelve years old when I began playing cricket with the kids from my colony. After years of dominating my drawing room cricket where the opposition primarily consisted of the wall and the furniture, I found the going more than just tough initially despite finding a group of kids who were extremely supportive and never nasty. However, when you are young, being shy and introverted with terrible skills means that you’re often ‘hidden’ in a team sport i.e you are batting lower down the order and are the last bowler whose services the captain will ask for. You neither are good enough to participate more actively nor are you vocal enough to ask the more established players to give you a go. For much of my growing up years, that shy and introverted kid with little skills in the playing group was me.

On the other end of the spectrum was my friend whom we will call A. A was a cricket star from the time I knew him. Despite being a year younger than me, he was so good at the game that his services were sought by teams made up of boys much elder than us. He was just a different kettle of fish who enthralled people with his game and was easily the most promising and popular boy of the group. I won’t be exaggerating if I say I grew up being a fan of his batting. With an unconventional technique, this young boy could hit the ball hard. Very hard. That, for anyone growing up in the mid-2000s, meant inevitable comparisons with another man whose unconventional technique never came in the way of him blasting balls out of the park – MS Dhoni. So, like every group around that time had a Dhoni, A was our Dhoni.

Now I don’t remember exactly how and when it happened but soon after we started playing together, we struck a friendship. Despite the marked difference between us on the cricket field, there wasn’t much separating these two boys growing up in middle-class households with similar family composition. We were thick as thieves, often taking long walks after our playing hours and discussing all that adolescents would. On days when there was no play possible, we could be found flying kites on his terrace or giving each other a hard time at chess, a game I was slightly better at than him when we began playing but one in which he leapfrogged me easily once he got the hang of it.

While this happened off the field, on the field too we became inseparable. Despite my below-average skills, I’d always be the first one to be picked in his team. Truth be told, it wasn’t really much of a deal since he was anyway a one-man army capable of winning games with little contribution from others. However, that didn’t mean I was hidden away. Suddenly, I found myself valued, encouraged, and given responsibility despite results which on most occasions were far from satisfactory. Thanks to his all-round skills, I was always this cheerleader friend of his but I have no clue why he became my cheerleader. He trusted my off-spinners more than I did and it made the experience of playing cricket so much enjoyable. For a shy and timid teenager, being encouraged for something you’re good at is one thing but to find encouragement for something you’re unbelievably bad at is an absolutely different experience. And that too coming from the best meant so much to me.  In the years that followed, not only did I start enjoying the game, I’d like to believe that I even slightly improved my bowling skills, even though it was an improvement from being below average to average. The camaraderie meant that It made for some interesting contest when we rarely found playing against each other. Bowling to him needed me to up my game and every time I did manage to get the better of him, it was followed by some wild celebrations. 

The playground’s composition used to change at the end of every academic year as those who left the city for higher studies would cease to be a regular in our fixtures. Newer boys would get added to the group while those who left would join us during the vacations. In 2012, it was our time. The end of schooling sent my friend away while for me despite being in the city, college life meant that playing for leisure nosedived on my new priority list. The playground, though, remained sacred to me. It was a magical place where we managed to wound the clock back every time somehow. Irrespective of the growth in their professional life, they’d still be treated the same way they were treated ten years ago when on the field. However, without A, the enjoyment of playing the game waned and the skills also began to fade.

Off the field, our paths diverged too. Growing up away from home brought changes in his personality that were missing from my growth which was still taking place in the city I had spent all my growing up years in. Our respective education also shaped us into fairly different adults as opposed to the kind of kids that we were when in school. Unlike all those years where we were a regular fixture of each other’s’ evenings, we met a handful of times when he would be in the city post-school life. Mutual respect and warmth in the friendship remained and he remained encouraging of my pursuits while I supported him when he came to a late realization post-college that he should have had given the sport a chance.

Despite that, it couldn’t be denied that we grew up to be different individuals. Agreement over who’s the best cricketer going around didn’t matter much now. Disagreements over other issues, though, pinched. For instance, his appreciation for politically incorrect movies irked me. The first feeling was, “Surely, this isn’t the same guy I grew up with.” The dissonance in our politics also sowed seeds of discontent. Soon, the list of things we could talk about began to shrink. The volatile nature of the country’s political climate only made a friendship between two people who didn’t see eye to eye on politics more difficult to sustain. I know it’s something that people say a lot about romantic relationships but some friendships also reach a point where the love remains despite there not remaining much to like about each other. Ours too had reached there

And then one January morning in 2020, we were on the ground again playing cricket. Having not played a lot over the years, I was initially reluctant to join. It’s easier to make a fool out of yourself when you’re a kid but it’s doubly embarrassing to do that when you’re an adult. But eventually, I gave in.

The matches were more high-octane than I was prepared for and had more skilled people involved than I could handle. I knew I wasn’t going to be anything more than a liability in that setup. But I was happy to be there being part of the action after a long time. My friend, still easily the most popular in the colony for his skills, was sent in to open the batting. Somehow, switching from leather ball cricket to tennis ball cricket proved a little tricky for him, and on that morning, he just couldn’t get the timing he was famed for. In no time, the jibes flew from both teammates and opposition players. Of course, the bigger the reputation, the more you become a target of digs when you fail. And soon, I began to feel the pinch of it. In response, I began to cheer for him from the sidelines and gave pep talks every time he returned after getting dismissed. It was one of those days for him when nothing clicked which meant my cheering only got louder and pep talks fiercer. When it came to defending whatever we had scored, I was ready to spend the entire time fielding as my self-awareness radar had scanned every player there to come to the conclusion that I was the least skilled on the field of play. Much to my surprise, though, after a couple of overs, A began to exhort the team captain for the ball to be given to me. He seemed confident that I could still roll my arm over to help the team’s cause.

Ideally, this story should have ended with me bowling a spell from hell and celebrating it wildly with him. But then real life isn’t made up of moments right out of movie scripts. It’s made up of random events involving real people with real emotions and memories. And of sacred spaces like the cricket ground which once again managed to wound the clock back on two friends who had grown up to grow apart in life. It’s not that our differences in opinions magically disappeared but, on that day, cricket reminded us of what we were to each other and probably what we should be to each other irrespective of the differences. Friends who cheer for each other.