What can galli cricket teach us ?

In a recent article, Rob Steen acknowledged what has been evident for some time now - that Twenty20 has indeed come into its own and should be regarded as a legitimate form of cricket. He points out that Twenty20, far from being an inferior form of the game, has actually improved the quality of some aspects of world cricket - fielding, decision-making and of course, power hitting. Simply reducing the number of overs per innings from 50 to 20, while maintaining the essential contest between bat and ball, has produced a game with different problems to solve - how to consistently score at 10 runs per over ? how to maintain energy levels in a scenario where every single ball is important ? Reducing the number of overs has necessitated different skills for consistent success - where Test cricket is about endurance, Twenty20 is about the ability to think on one's feet, where Test cricket is about wicket-taking, Twenty20 is about stemming the flow of runs even more than 50-over cricket is. Interestingly, skills developed through Twenty20 cricket have enhanced performance in other forms of the game - bowling yorkers in the death overs, maximising advantage from a Powerplay. Kevin Pieterson recently suggested that the IPL (Indian Premier League) experience had played a large part in India's recent ODI successes.

So, simply reducing the number of overs creates a different form of the game, requiring different skills, that can often be used to enhance performance in other forms of the game. What then would be the effect of further reducing the number of overs to 8, playing on a street rather than on a green open space, amidst traffic and bushes and lamp-posts ,with a stool instead of a set of stumps ? To put it another way, what is galli cricket, what different skills does it necessitate for success and is it sacrilegious to suggest that galli cricketers might even have something to teach their professional counterparts of decidedly higher natural ability ?

Ironically, galli cricket in some aspects, resembles cricket in its original form as invented by rural and artisan Englishman in the 19th century (as revealed by C.L.R. James in Beyond a Boundary). Then, stools and tree stumps were used for the set of stumps at the batsman's end, and so they are in galli cricket. Also used in galli cricket are bricks stacked on top of each other, chairs and actual stumps themselves. The aspect in which it differs from all other forms of cricket however, is the heterogeneity of the conditions it is played in. Every galli cricketer has his own native street where he plays most of his cricket. It is also true though, that every galli cricketer has been tested in a number of different streets, each with their own set of trees that block the ball, bushes that balls routinely get lost in and houses to avoid hitting the ball into. He has had to play on a variety of surfaces - tar, mud, cement, each presenting different challenges and on pitches of different lengths, determined by the longest strip of bare land on offer. He's played with different types of balls - the conventional tennis ball, the hard and the soft rubber ball , the hybrid 'cricket-tennis' ball and the occasional cork ball. He's had to run in to bowl with an auto-rickshaw motoring along beside him or had to concentrate on batting while the woman selling sweets was advertising them at the top of her voice.

Amidst all this, he's had to improvise strokes that will gain him runs inspite of the trees, bushes, lamp-posts and fielders conspiring against him. Or as a bowler, he's had to learn to intelligently place fields to compensate for the less-athletic of his counterparts. Overcoming obstacles and solving problems come naturally to the good galli cricketer. Inspite of all the variations in the conditions, he reminds himself of the constants - that cricket is about bat and ball and if he were batting, that he can hit a ball inspite of the lack of a sight-screen, amidst the traffic, between two inconvenient lamp-posts as long as he really wants to and really believes he can.

Galli cricket can be very unprofessional. Not for galli cricketers all the talk of 'bowling in good areas' and 'knowing where your off-stump is'. There are no ordered spells for bowlers and who goes in to bat next is decided only when a wicket falls. In that respect, galli cricket reflects the culture it has developed in - the sub-continental sporting culture emphasising spontaneity and flair rather than method and technique. As a result, one might not see the most consistent of performances or ruthless execution of plans in a galli cricket match. But what galli cricket lacks in professionalism, it makes up for in sheer unpredictability and moments of brilliance - impossible catches, astounding sixes that shouldn't have been and 'double hat-tricks'. Every galli cricketer realises that at one level, cricket is a game of instinct and shouldn't be over-complicated. So, he looks upon every performance as another opportunity to express himself and while doing it, to enjoy himself. He knows that in so doing lies his best chance of playing that match-winning innings or bowling that winning over. In his fantastic book 'What Sport Tells us About Life', Ed Smith refers to this as the 'tenet of amateurism'.

So, galli cricket at its best, can produce a special breed of cricketer. Batsmen who are intuitive judges of singles and can improvise the most outrageous cricket strokes. Robin Uthappa from the Indian cricket team, has talked about the role of galli cricket in developing a stroke he is well known for - walking down the wicket to a quick bowler, reaching the ball on the full and sending it over the bowler's head. Rashid Latif revealed last year that, much of Umar Gul's and Sohail Tanvir's bowling success in the World Twenty20 could be attributed to their previous experience of such matches in local tournaments in Karachi. But more than any particular technical cricket skill, galli cricket can improve a cricketer's adaptability and mental strength. It can aid him in ignoring the uncontrollables like the pitch, weather conditions and opposition, and make him focus on what he can control. Perhaps more importantly, it can teach him to free his mind and unshackle him from the fear of failure, allowing him to perform the seemingly impossible - just ask M.S. Dhoni how he hits yorkers for six !