A Kinder, Gentler Baseball

There's a fielding position close to the batsman called a “silly mid-off”--silly because you have to be foolish to stand that close.

It's a country music listenin', front porch sittin' neighborhood between in South Richmond--which makes the apparition of the twenty-odd, white-clad cricket players that much more surreal. Two teams--one from the Indian Association of Richmond, the other from the Indian Association of Richmond--are milling around on the playing field of J.L. Francis Elementary School. Players meet and greet their rivals; stretch and warm-up.

It's an overcast Sunday morning. Indian popular music flows from the open doors of a minivan. A nearby volleyball net billows like a sail in the welcome summer breeze.

I've never been to a cricket match. Friendly authorities start guiding me through the sport's intricacies before the game begins.

"This is a short match--one day," says Nusrat Talibi of the visiting team. The big matches, the ones between countries, take several days. "The players have tea, they have lunch, they take a nap. . ."

The guys who hit the ball are called batsmen; the ones who throw, bowlers--it's easy to call the pitchers that after you see their delivery. They run almost thirty yards to build up speed, then let fly with an overhand delivery that my boyhood friends called "pitching like a girl"--except that the ball leaves their hands faster than any baseball I've ever seen--and bounces, somewhere in the vicinity of batsmen's feet.

"It's harder for them to hit if it bounces."

Warm-ups over, the game begins. Philip Cherry, a West Indian, is up. On the first pitch the wall takes a wild bounce--the sickening sound of its impact with flesh is audible even at a distance.

"Ice!"

Cherry is helped from the field. He lays on the bleachers, a bag of ice on the upper lip."Philip is retired for now. Next batsman, please!"

Harpal Malik is warming up. "I used to play for my college," he says. "That was before I got these tractor tires." He grabs his middle disgustedly.

A broad, shouldered, powerful man, Malik exudes physical presence. He pounds his cricket bat savagely on the turf like bull pawing the ground before a charge.

The throw. People cheer for reasons I can't understand.

"Well played!"

The game continues. Malik is out after only a few more throws. The high score for the game will go for a less physically imposing man, Sekar Challa, who's working on a Ph.D. in information systems at V.C.U. He'll score thirty points.

Batsmen sometimes score a hundred in those multiple-day matches I keep hearing about.

Cherry walks up. "I feel good but I look bad," he says.

"You'll need stitches." The speaker has obviously seen his share of cricket injuries. "The only thing is, they will cut your mustache. You will have half a mustache."

Cherry leaves for the emergency room. I suddenly realize he had been waiting around, debating with himself whether or not to play for the rest of day-long game with his injury.

I chat with Harish Dani, who owns the Indian Grocery on Hull Street. More of the mysteries of the game: the totemic object behind the batsman is called a wicket. It has properties of both home plate and goal posts and is exactly like neither. There are three thigh-high sticks called bales. When the bales hit the ground, the batsman is out. He can also be out in many other ways.

"A sixer!"

The small crowd on the sidelines applauds joyfully. Shekar Challa has just hit a line drive into the woods--over the boundaries, which counts for six points. Mangled oak leaves flutter gently down from the region of the ball's furious passage. Players from both sides disappear to look for the wall.

The only person wearing gloves on the field is the wicket keeper. Everyone else catches those blistering drives barehanded. There's a fielding position close to the batsman called a “silly mid-off”--silly because you have to be foolish to stand that close.

Brad Silling introduces himself. He was raised in England, attended Emmanuel Grammer School in South London, and has fond memories of playing the game as a boy.

"Don't you feel a calmness?" he says. "It's a peaceful scene." He expands on the civilized attributes of the game.

While a vivid picture comes into my mind from moments before--a player throwing himself down after an error an pounding the ground with his fists--I have to agree that cricket does have it's mellow aspects. The sound of the bat's connection with the ball, for instance, is deeper and more resonant than in baseball--a viola rather than a violin. And everyone socializes over soft drinks during breaks.

"It's a kinder, gentler baseball."

I leave after sharing an ample, catered lunch with the players. It's 2 p.m.--the game is only half over but after four hours I'm spectatored out.

When I run into Harish Dani a few days later he told me that Richmond had scored a resounding victory. Smarting from their defeat, the visitors were calling for a rematch before they left the field.

"A Kinder, Gentler Baseball" first appeared in the September 10. 1991 issue of Style Weekly.