Nothing brings Indians together like a good game of cricket. Sadly, most of us stop playing cricket once we leave college.
Take Ajay, a 35-year-old working in an IT company. He lives in a major city, is married, and has two kids. He used to play cricket regularly with his friends. But now it is harder. The grounds are outside the city, which takes him an hour to get to and another to get back. Once there, the game takes about 3 hours to finish. As a batsman, if he gets out early, he spends most of the time sitting in the dugout and standing out fielding. At some point, Ajay realized that he was spending far too much time away from his family.
The main reasons people stop paying cricket are:
Takes too much time
Requires a large playing area
Requires 22 players for it to be any sort of fun
Requires reasonable level of fitness
Requires too much equipment that also needs constant maintenance
As someone who loves to play cricket, I began to think about a form of cricket which is as close to the real thing as possible without the demands of infrastructure and fitness. The basic idea came from having played box cricket as a young child in Bombay (yes, Bombay).
In doubles cricket, a team is made up of two people (obviously!). It is played on a pitch not larger than one used to play 5-a-side football. I have outlined the rules of the game in another article -
But in essence, it is a simple game with a few tweaks.
Nobody really gets out, instead the team gets a -5.
Each team, of two players, gets to face four (4) six-ball overs.
While batting, the first bounce after you hit the ball should be inside the pitching box.
The advantages of this form of cricket are:
It can be played in a small space
The game finishes within an hour
It can be played without be very fit
Doesn't require more that a ball, a tennis ball and three stumps
A game of double cricket anyone?
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