Barbados to Berhampur!!!

Barbados being one of the most beautiful island nations, sounds jitters, and spells danger.Flummoxed? Answer is well known to all those people who have been watching T20 world cup matches held in West Indies this year.Unfortunatley I being one among them have suffered from nostalgia evidencing the vulnerability of Indian batsmen to deliberate short bowling by their opposition in 2 crucial matches in the Super 8 stage eventually leading to team India’s uneventful exit from the tournament. I being born in a country known for its unconditional love and penchant for cricket, not as a sport but infact as a religion, has much to do with the nostalgia associated during the matches at Barbados. I hail from a town turned city, now hosts a municipal corporation located in the not so popular state of Orissa. What I relish immensely is the time spent in playing and understanding the nuances of Gully cricket. I can tell u the cricket we watch on our TV sets and the cricket I enjoyed in gullies of my town are 2 different worlds and set apart. In gully cricket we normally employ a ball made up of a type of rubber rather than leather and quite popularly known as Dog ball. The bounce produced by the pitches at Barbados is identical to what a dog/rubber ball does on the dusty and muddy gullies where u won’t find a demarcation between grass and the pitch surface. It was arduous for gully batsmen like me to last on the pitch for the entire span of innings because deciphering the spongy and uneven bounce in the pitches was no easy. Unlike in international venues where u can pull, hook or cut the bouncers for a boundary or a sixer, in gullies if u succeed in doing so u will have to walk back to the pavilion because, if this happens the ball would land on some roof top or terrace of a building. Here pavilion doesn’t mean walking back to the dressing room or the team dugout. To the batsmen’s utter disappointment he will have to start fielding again. Hence loosing Ur wicket is no less than a curse. When I witnessed batsmen of the likes of gambhir, dhoni, raina succumb to the short bowling I was able to draw a contrast between Barbados and Berhampur.