Cricket or a Joke....

One day I was sitting in the park alone, when I saw a bunch of young kids aged between 6 to 9 years come there. They started fixing stumps on either side of the ground and made it their pitch. One of them walked 22 steps to decide the other end of the wicket. Being a boring day for me and nothing to do, I decided to watch this match closely and thought the next few hours would pass off quickly. 

There were 10 kids in total so they decided to figure the teams out by making one kid turnaround his back to point at a kid with another kid by giving numbers behind his back.

 Numbers 1 to 5 became team 1 and numbers 6 to 10 became the other team. Then came the crucial toss with one kid scratching on a flat stone piece and tossing it up. Call came for line and clean sides and the scratched side won the toss.

Next was batting and bowling order huddle between both teams and after 10 mins of arguing it was decided that the guys who brought their bats will bat first and the ball guy will bowl first.

The first few balls went past the batsman in the first over and all runs came through contested wides. 

Then came the sight which none of us could have even imagined can happen in cricket. Ball number five in the first over was bowled and hit well, the two batsmen ran for the first, second and third run when a fantastic throw landed into the bowlers hands when both batsmen were midway the pitch. The bowler quickly knocked one wicket off and then immediately threw the ball at the wicket keeper who also knocked off his side of the wicket. Both the batsmen were declared out to my disbelief. I thought of intervening but found both sides seemed ok with this rule. 

Now with 2 wickets gone I thought the match will get over quickly but not this quick. Next ball was a yorker that knocked off all the three stumps and the one side started celebrating crazily. I first thought it must be a a big hitter who got out hence the celebration but it turned out even worse. Apparently, the whole side was given all out as all three stumps fell which means they lost 3 wickets. 

The other side came to bat need 5 runs to win and the second side bowler put a huge bouncer that went over the wicket keeper's head over the boundary and it was declared a six. 

Match won and over the kids celebrated and walked away. The most hilarious and shocking cricket I had even witnessed in my life and still continues to be a memory.