Cricket in Chennai

For those of you who have played street cricket in Chennai this might inspire some nostalgia and for those who haven't well you haven't really enjoyed the game ;-)

Street Cricket, or 'theru crickettu' as it is popularly known in chennai uses a number of words used with meanings attached to it. GOD knows who came up with the idea and the meanings to these words but trust me they are mind blowing. Its been passed on from our previous generation and will continue in the next generation.

*Mattai - The piece of wood to be used as the cricket bat.

*Gaaji - The indian reference for an 'inning'. It is a well known fact that captains of street cricket teams always prefer to bat first irrespective of conditions.

*Double Gaaji - An excpetional scenario wherein a batsman can bat twice if there are a shortage of players in the side.

*Osi Gaaji - A scenario where some stranger wants to bat for a couple of balls just for fun and then carry on with his work or when a batsman is actually out but not given by the umpire.

*Over Gaaji - The act of a selfish batsman who purposely retains strike by taking a single of the last ball of the over

*Last Man Gaaji - A scenario where the last man who is not out with all wickets down gets to play "Gaaji" with no runner.

*Current - The unique and distinctive way of getting a batsman run out. When a batsman attempts a dangerous run, He could be run out by any of the fielders who just need to land their feet on the stone at the bowlers end.

*Adetail - The most funny reference to a batsman being 'Retired Hurt'.

*Bongu - The slang word used if a team unfairly cheats the other team while playing.

*Full Cover - A situation where in a batsmen is taking a half stump guard thereby covering the complete stumps from the view of the bowler. Since street cricket typically do not have a LBW it is very difficult to get a batsman out, if he covers
the stump fully.

*One pitch catch - A rule where a batsman gets out when a fielder catches it even after the ball pitches once. Typically street cricket batsmen do not go for lofted
shots fearing to get out / hitting into neighbour's house / shop.

*One pitch one hand - A slight modification of the above rule where a fielder can use both hands if catching the ball full toss, but has to use only one hand, if the
catch is "one-pitch". Typically used to increase the chances of batsmans survival and make it a little difficult for the fielder.

*La Ball - Last ball of an over

*Full fast - Since street cricket pitches are a few yards long, a ball which is thrown with full pace and energy is considered a no ball as it will be impossible to handle such pace with short distance

*Waiteees - where in the batsman is not ready to face the bowler due to a distraction which can be a vehicle coming / ppl crossing the road.

*Common Fielding - Due to lack of number of fielders, it is possible that people from batting team who are not actually doing batting have to field or do wicket keeping or for that matter even umpiring

*Ball Right - When a umpire/batsman declares a wide ball, bowler uses this term to say that the ball was not a wide. Typically happens because umpires are from the batting teams.

*Dokku - A derogatory term for a defensive shot. Typically a batsman is discouraged from playing such shots because of the constraints of less number of overs and because everyone in the team needs to have a fair amount of gaaji.

*Baby Over - When a bowler has no hopes of completing his over with lots of wides and no balls he is substituted by a better bowler and the over is called a Baby over, Baby because the first bowler was very amateur.

*Uruturadhu - hen the bowler is unable to extract any meaningful bounce from the pitch. Sometimes used as a defensive tactic towards the deck.

*Thadavuradhu - When a batsman is not able to make any contact with the ball using his bat.

*Suthuradhu - Same as slogging in cricket towards the deck.

*Kathadikudhu / samma kaaathu - when a batsman slogs and misses.

*One Side Runs - When teams decide before hand that there are runs only on one side of the wicket due to lack of sufficient number of fielders

*Granted - - When a batsman hits a reasonable distance from which fetching the ball back is slightly difficult due to technical difficulties already mentioned (like vehicle crossing a road, presence of a thorny bush etc), teams agree that a fixed
number of runs are GRANTED This is also referred to with a suffix "ji" - like
one-ji, two-ji :-)

*Trials - This is the first ball bowled to any batsman who walks in and it is called trials. It is used to gauge the pace and bounce of the pitch and the ball by both batsman and the bowler. Note: The batsman is not supposed to hit this ball, else the fielding will demand him to go and fetch the ball. It's a kind of tactic by
the fileding team to not allow the batsman to free his arms.

*All-reals..first ball - This indicates the start of the match. Usually the batsman prefer to play "dokku".

*'hitting the bats after each ball' (no term used) - This is the usual practice followed by the batsmen in the middle. This gives little time to take breath and also signal for a quick signal in the next ball. The best part is even if they dont want to discuss anything, they still need to hit the bats. If they miss or doesn't do it properly, they have to come back and make sure that they hit properly.

Now This is what is called CRICKET ;-)