T20 Comes to the hills

In its second year,the tournament,branded as “the world’s biggest”,hopes to take cricket to every village of Himachal Pradesh. Organised by the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA),the tournament,which began on November 29,will go on for a month and a half. The participating players are mostly local villagers and though the organisers provide them balls,they have to pool in for bats and helmets,food and travelling expenses.

With breathtaking views of the Kullu Valley and the Dhauladhar ranges,the setting is spectacular. But the playing conditions are nowhere near perfect. The pitch is matting and the playing field is far from level—balls hit by a right hander towards the leg side tend to roll downhill where children in slippers play with bats crudely carved out of any available wood and balls made of cloth.

Balls are sometimes hard to field when they slide off slopes or plop into streams. Occasionally,play has to be stopped as cattle and ponies traipse along the outfield,on their way to the jungle to graze.

Yet,the game goes on. The players,dressed in white,like regular Test cricketers,come in all shapes,sizes,ages and professions. The enthusiasm shows when they bend that little bit extra to send the ball racing,then dive to stop singles and come up smiling after having saved runs and bruised their elbows.

Sporting a big tilak,Khemraj Thakur says,“I went to the temple before the match to seek blessings that I play well and also to ask that no one is injured in the match”—no big favour considering many were playing with a leather ball for the first time.

While the play is passionate,ambition seemingly trumps skill. Almost every batsman unsuccessfully tries to replicate Virender Sehwag’s uppercut of the short ball. Calmly overseeing matters is umpire Rakesh Thakur. He turns down one vociferous leg-before appeal after another. In the style of Simon Taufel,his “favourite umpire”,Thakur nudges his head to one side indicating that the ball has pitched outside leg and cannot be given out. A farmer who grows tomatoes and onions for most of the year,Thakur has been selected as an umpire because he once played district-level cricket. However,he doesn’t just give decisions—in the next match he will be playing with his team as an off-spinner.

Umpiring officials are not the only thing in short supply. With 1,342 teams playing some 150 matches in around 75 venues or centres daily across the state in what is being marketed as the world’s largest cricket tournament—pending approval by the Guinness Book of World Records—there is no scope for a points-based league format. Every match is a knock-out.

“We hosted a similar tournament last year which had 1,000 teams,” says Manuj Sharma,the managing secretary of the tournament. How the tournament works is that a team has to beat every team in its centre (a venue where teams of neighbouring villages play against each other) before proceeding to play the winning teams of other centres at the district level. The district winners will finally play against each other in Dharamshala for the chance to take back Rs 3 lakh and bragging rights as the best team in Himachal Pradesh.

The odds of winning are steep and most of the minor teams—Mandi’s Press XI and a team made up of staff at Kullu’s zonal hospital— have already been eliminated.

At the central ground in Kangra town,the captain of the only girls’ team in this tournament,Sushma Verma,is keenly watching a match between a team from Kangra and another from Dharamshala. The 18-year-old,who studies and also plays cricket at the Himachal Girls’ Cricket Hostel in Kangra,giggles as she points to the Dharamshala team,whose players are busy coating their faces with sunscreen even though the sun has nearly set.

At the cricket hostel,girls like Verma live,study and play cricket,hoping to get into the Himachal Pradesh U-19 cricket team. Today,they are practising throw downs and forward defence—the Girls’ XI has a match coming up in a day’s time and Verma is confident of her squad’s chances in the tournament.

“We are playing a local side and there is no doubt we will beat them,” she says. The girls are a confident bunch. Fourteen-year-old Sushmita Negi,a promising off-spinner,says,“We aren’t afraid of playing against boys. The only thing is it’s hard to be serious when you see that they don’t even know the right way to hold a bat.”

But a common challenge that all the players face are the playing conditions. Since the HPCA only has six venues—another six are being planned—matches in this tournament are being played wherever level ground can be found.

The onset of winter in many parts of the state has made playing conditions even tougher. Grounds in Lahaul and Spiti are already frosted over and their teams have been routed elsewhere,increasing the pressure on the remaining grounds. After all,space is at a premium in hilly Himachal Pradesh where the Dharamshala Stadium was built by levelling two hills.

In the village of Sainj,high up in the Parvati Valley,a ground suitable for play was found but it already hosted a hallowed resident. “Devtaon ki bhumi hai (the land belongs to the gods),” explains Ghanshyam Gautam,the man in charge of the venue at Sainj. The Sainj centre is dusty and barren,yet enticingly is a level part of the mountain that drops suddenly off the edge into Parvati river. The land belongs to the Laxmi Narayan temple further up the hills.

“We have to ask for special permission from the gods to use the ground,” says Ghanshyam,adding that he explained to the deity that the tournament was good for the people. “We got permission very quickly.”

However,while land was secured,the boundary wasn’t. Nets had to be put up to prevent fours and sixes from hurtling down to the foaming river below.

While an understanding devta came to the rescue of Sainj,the residents of Shangher village were not so lucky. At the ground where they wanted to make a pitch stood a 500-year-old Krishna temple. In their first match at Sainj,the villagers from Shangher didn’t too well,which they attributed to the fact that they had to trek with their cricket kit for about 10 km from their village before they could get a Himachal Roadways bus to Sainj.

Not all matches are being held at makeshift venues and not all players are amateurs. Matches in Bilaspur are being held at the HPCA grounds,which has facilities on a par with the cricket stadium in Dharamshala that hosted a few IPL matches in the past.

Striker XI,a team from Bilaspur,has two former Ranji players. One of them,Sanjay Trauma,an off-spinner,is bowling to some inexperienced batsmen. “They are expecting the ball to turn,but this is a banta ball (made of hard leather). It won’t turn,” says the 25-year-old. Sanjay,who was in the Himachal Pradesh Ranji side a year ago before being dropped,is hoping his performance will win him a place again in the Ranji side. “Last year,Gurvinder Singh played in this tournament and now he is in the Ranji side. I hope I can do the same.”

Almost everyone playing in the tournament has heard of Gurvinder Singh—the man who was picked from an obscure town and went on to play for Himachal. Talent spotting,says HPCA president and MP Anurag Thakur,is one of the key goals of the organisers of the T20 Mahasangram.

While others play on mountains and at makeshift venues,Singh is in the wood-panelled pavillion of the Dharamshala Cricket stadium,taking tips on spin bowling from former India player Sunil Joshi on the sidelines of a Ranji Trophy match between Himachal and Karnataka.

“I used to play cricket when I was very young but as I grew up,I slowly lost that competitive edge. By the time I turned 20,I decided to take up a job. When this tournament began last year,I thought it would be a way to get back into the game. But then I started taking wickets and scoring runs,” he says.

But Singh is an exception. Most players in this T20 tournament don’t expect to make it big. Like Khemraj Thakur,the player from Badagaum village. “I play cricket because I love it. Even if we get out of the tournament,I’ve had fun and anyway there is next year to look forward to,” he says.