Who says cricket is only for the youth? AJ Block organised a short hand cricket tournament recently that saw residents of all ages playing their hearts out. It was also open to residents of the neighbouring Sarat Abasan (SA).
To avoid the heat, the event started in the evening and lasted till beyond midnight. Alongside the four-team tournament, it also hosted a couple of exhibition matches. One was for children aged up to 18 years and the other was for senior citizens. Surup Sinha, 82, was the senior-most player and Arghya Sarkar, 6, was the junior-most.
Short hand cricket refers to a form of cricket with a smaller boundary where the batsman must refrain from hitting ‘6’ as it will be considered a wicket. The bowler too needs to bowl following restrictions on how much he can bend his body and move his hand.
Members of the children’s teams.
Young guns
The match for the children was for both girls and boys, and showcased how the girls of AJ and SA blocks have equally strong passion and skills as the boys.
Ujjesa Barman, aged 12 years, was ecstatic to play cricket for the first time. “I am glad the committee took such a step to include us. I enjoyed the essence of sports so much that I’ve asked my father to enroll me in basketball classes now,” she said.
A women’s match was also supposed to be played but it got cancelled due to lack of participants and so Ujjesa’s elder sister, Esha, aged 20, had to be included in the children’s match.
Willow war
In the eight-a-side tournament for adults, the teams Mango Shake and Super Giants made their way into the final after some nail-biters. Super Giants had comfortably made their way into the final but Mango Shakes had to fight it out with team Black Panthers. In the final match of the league stage, Black Panthers were facing Super Giants and in the last three balls, the Panthers needed five runs to secure their spot in the final.
After a dot ball, Souradip Mazumder, an SA Block resident and a member of Black Panthers, managed to hit a boundary but on the last delivery, with one run needed, the ball hit him just above the wrist. Even though they managed to run a single, it was not considered as the ball had not hit the bat nor had it hit the gloves.
Souradip was visibly disappointed. “We thought we had done it when we ran the single but unfortunately the umpire didn’t accept it. The rule was that the ball must have its first contact with either the bat or the gloved area of the hand. It's extremely sad that we missed reaching the final for such a slight margin but then we had a lot of fun,” said the college-goer.
As the final match started, Super Gaints chose to bat first and set a target of 63 runs in their eight overs. Mango Shake were almost there but lost wickets in quick succession, which led to them scoring only 54 runs in the second innings.
Bishakh Roychowdhury, captain of Super Giants, was proud of his team. “All the players played exceptionally well and from the very beginning of the tournament we gave our best. We treated every match as a do-or-die one,” he said.
Soumyadeep Khasnabis of Super Giants was named the Man of the Tournament while Shourya Roy from Mango Shakes took home the Best Bowler prize. Siddhant Mazumder from Black Panthers scooped the highest run scorer of the tournament award with 89 runs to his name in three matches. “Winning this means a lot since I haven’t played cricket in the last five years. The tournament was well-organised and brought back memories of playing cricket on this same ground,” said Siddhant, who is in college now.
The success of the tournament meant it would become an annual event for the block. “Our motive behind this tournament was to get the residents involved,” explained sports convernor of the block, Sanjoy Barman. “We had organised a badminton tournament a couple of months back and will try to come up with something else soon. We want to break the monotony of daily lives.”