For the common Indian man, Cricket is not just a sport. It’s a religion. An Indian kid learns to hold a bat before he can speak his first word. Whether or not you like the sport, if you were born in India, you would’ve definitely played Gully Cricket with your childhood friends. We neither had pitches nor did we have stadiums, but that did not stop us. We made our own little Eden Gardens and Ferozshah Kotlas in every street. As IPL 7 is coming to a close, we bring to you 26 rules we all Indian kids instinctively followed while playing Gully Cricket. This will take you back in time.
1. Life was a bliss for the batting team.
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2. Before every over, the bowler and the batsman were hears shouting from across the two ends of the pitch. ‘Thoda aur wicket chhod sale’. ‘Aur kitna chhodu be!’.
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3.We kind of always knew he’d grow up to become Ashish Nehra.
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4.Make one kid turn around, pat on his back twice making him assign a turn to everyone – that’s how we Indians roll!
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5.The lucky guy got to bat for both the teams.
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6.No wonder every time the batsman got clean bowled, the umpire showed ‘no ball’.
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7.This explains why every kid forced his parents to buy him a bat!
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8.“But shot toh usne maara tha na! Usne khoyi hai” There was no escaping the blame game.
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9.We played either to bat or ball. Nobody wanted to field. And there was no way we were letting the same person bat and bowl one after the other!
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10.Not to forget, we dried the ball by bouncing it off the walls around. The dirty patches must still be there.
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11.The reason why India could never produce an AB De Villers of its own!
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12.Lollipop – the ball that was slower than Alia Bhatt.
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13.The old haggard lady upstairs who never gave the ball back, remember?
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14.Now, that was hard!
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15.One reason for making this rule was that everybody hated that uncle and wanted all his window panes shattered.
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16.For those monsters who just couldn’t control their emotions while bowling.
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17.We had a rule for every time and place. If you’re playing in a crammed space, one hit = 1 run!
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18.Of course, the non striker kept shifting it away.
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19.Dukka meant two runs, just in case you’ve forgotten!
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20.Oh, the joy of catching the batsman’s shot with just one hand!
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21.Probably because the owners were going to be away for a while and there was no way they could get the ball back.
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22.Now, who wants to keep running in and out of the colony.
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23.We Indian kids are very merciful you see. There’s no LBW and you get three chances!
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24.This one was to keep the Sachin Tendulkars of the society in control.
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25.We told you, the one who owned the bat, owned the world.
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26.However much stupid it may sound today, you gotta admit every boys group swore by this rule. In fact, breaking this code could mean expulsion from the group!
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And when we got bored of Gully cricket, we had a million other games to play. To check out the 24 fun games every Indian kid played while growing up, click here.
