The children of the neighbourhood have been strangely quiet. They seem to have gone off spending the late afternoon thwacking a tennis ball with their bats; shattering windows of the colony and the eardrums of most adults with their piercing screams.
They do not seem to harbour the ambition to wear the India Blues on to the cricket field and I wonder why? Is it because all their heroes are now tainted and have the grease of match fixing staining their whites? Or because they've all been on candid camera abusing their ilk of corrupting the game?
I undertook an investigation to try and figure out what these kids actually did in their spare time now that cricket was out. Football is passe and hockey infra dig that they must be doing something outdoors other than whooping it up with Lara Croft on their terminals.
I chanced upon a small bunch of kids hidden behind a clump of bushes in the neighbourhood park. There they were, wearing their cricketing great, carrying their bats, balls and wickets, but not actually going on to play the game.
I wondered why, so I decided to listen in on their conversation. Realisation dawned; they were actually planning for their game to be. In other words, doing what the accomplished sportsfolk did, fixing it.
The odds were heavy. One of the children, Babloo, I think, had come with the offer from the opposing team captain, an eight-year-old from another locality. His dad had promised him Rs 100 if they could thrash the opponents. Given that lure, Captain X, in the new cricketing tradition, was trying to ensure that events unfolded just the way he wanted them to, so that dear ol' dad would have to make the payment. This kid had a smart head on his shoulders and willing to make an investment so guarantee a windfall.
Thus, Rs 5 had been promised to the biggest hitter in the enemy camp; a squat, thick kid who'd earned a reputation for himself after having displayed the knack of clobbering the ball out of the park. This mythical figure's stature had been enhanced by the ever increasing tally of windows shattered, flowerpots destroyed. Legend has it that he once even managed to annihilate the windscreen of a car that was parked some distance away from the park.
Rs 5 was invested in the performance of the opponent's opening bowler. Pappu was probably the only one on either team who could get the ball reach the batsmen after just a single bounce. In other words, he enjoyed a deadly strike rate.
The third and final investment was in Chotu, a bespectacled kid most of who's face was covered with his thick glasses. Chotu was the crucial player in this game, since he was to stand in as the umpire.
The match progressed along with expected lines with Captain X's team cakewalking over its rival XI. Captain C's dad had to pay up and Captain X turned a neat profit of Rs 85.
One of the aggrieved fathers of one of the neighbourhood kids was nonplussed over this turn of events. He looked at me and said, "How could they lose? They're miles better than those other kids. I could have bet that they would have won the match."
I smiled and replied, "They're now learning how to really play cricket. Isn't that nice?