When The Ground Was Ours

 

These days I have started playing cricket again on weekends, the strokes do not connect and the reflexes are slower, not what they used to be.  But the feeling is strangely the same as it was years ago when cricket was not just a game but a part of us growing up. It is not a turf where we play but a proper patch of ground with uneven surface and red mud that sticks to your chappals and stains your clothes and the sky wide open above us making you feel like you are part of something real. The bruises are real here and the dust rises with every slide and yet you never hear anyone complain because that is how it is meant to be.

I see how cricket has changed and I do not blame those who prefer turf these days because the shortage of open grounds is real and maintenance is a struggle in itself but I also notice something else. People have started fancying turf even when they have access to a ground nearby and they say turf is cleaner and better shaped and saves time but I remember how we used to shape our own grounds. We would walk in early and remove all the overgrown grass pick up stones clear the pitch, sprinkle water and only then begin the match. This was not a task it was part of the game itself. Now it feels like people want to arrive and play and leave in an hour without giving the game its space to breathe.

Even the bats and balls have evolved in a way that feels a little too convenient. Now it is all scooped bats and soft tennis balls and people say it is safer even if you get hit also you can swing faster with less effort, but I remember the days of the stumper ball that could knock the wind out of you and still we played without pads or gloves. We used those old MRF and Britannia bats that were so heavy you had to really swing with your whole body to send the ball flying and when it did it felt like a celebration. Today the swing comes easy but it feels like something is missing and I wonder if they even realise what that is.

Not just the bats and balls but even the shots have changed in a way that makes you feel the game has lost some of its soul. It is no longer about elegance or timing there are no more proper cover drives or square cuts or straight drives. What we see now is mostly raw power where people just swing hard waiting for the tennis ball to hit the middle of the bat and fly. There is no sense of placement or building an innings. Back then we placed the ball through the gaps we timed our shots we watched the field and played accordingly and there was something beautiful in that.

We used to play real test matches during the summer breaks where the game lasted for two or three days and each team took turns to bring Rasna made from those small sachets mixed in water bottles and someone would climb a tree and pluck mangoes and we would cut them and add chilli and salt and store them carefully under a tree for when the match took a break. There was joy in those small things.

Sometimes the ball would go missing and not in a simple way but in a way that would end the match for the day like when it went into that strict aunt’s house who never returned the ball no matter how much we begged. The rule was silent but clear that whoever lost the ball had to either climb and get it or bring a new one for the next match. These little troubles never stopped the game they just added to the story and gave us something to talk about for weeks.

And there were always bat stories in every match where one kid had a proper branded bat and he became the most important player of the game not because he could hit well but because if he got out and left with the bat the match would end and so we made sure to keep him in as long as possible. It was an unspoken arrangement and everyone understood it. The game taught us how to adjust and how to bend the rules just enough to keep the fun alive.

So when I walk onto the field now with a bat in hand and the soft crunch of gravel beneath my chappals it feels less like a game and more like a return. Not just to the ground but to a time when joy was simple and days felt endless. I look up at the open sky and for a moment I forget the years that have passed. I forget being a grown up and remember the boy who once ran barefoot chasing a ball with nothing on his mind but the next over. That boy still lives somewhere in me and each time I play I feel him smiling. Some people call it just a game but for a few of us it was always more, it was friendship it was freedom it was childhood stitched into afternoons of sun and sweat and laughter. And somehow it still is.