In this piece, I am going to attempt to sell you on the joys of playing good old book cricket. The circumstances we find ourselves in with the paucity of live cricket have reawakened my love for the indoors, literary version of the sport. A pen in one hand, the spine of a book in the other, flip to a page, and away we go.
It started on a monsoon day in Mumbai when I was eight years old and had returned home from school. I was excited to play outside again since exams were over. I had bought a new rubber ball on the way back, the red colored beauty with the hexagonal shapes you used to get for Rs. 5 at any general store. But my hopes were dashed with the constant rain showers that day and night and week. The incessant rain was spoiling my vacations like a streaky boundary at the end of an otherwise maiden over, frustrating and ruining the mood.
But one day my uncle visited us; he understood my predicament and offered me an alternative to cheer me up. He knew of my cricket craze so he grabbed a pencil and paper and wrote down the names of the playing eleven of the Indian team at that time. Then he asked me to find a textbook and proceeded to demonstrate how I could play cricket at home. He flipped the textbook to a random page, read the number of the page on the left side, noted the last digit of that number, and recorded the number next to the player from the Indian team.
Page 284, 4 runs to Sehwag. Page 196, Sixer. Page 372, 2 runs. Page 130, Out.
I watched in curiosity, confusion, and then amusement as he went about dismissing the Indian team for 80 odd runs.
“This is some good timepass if you are bored,” he said once finished. “Now don’t complain about the rain, OK?”
I have since refined this “timepass” to a great extent and have used up quite a few notebooks in my endeavors. Extrapolating on the rough version of the game my uncle taught me, I went on to play book cricket World Cups, tri-series, matches between All-time XIs, and even test matches. If your zeal for the sport is as high as mine and you are as much of a geek, I would definitely recommend that you give it a chance. Book cricket in all its glory.
First, you need a book. Preferably a paperback and ideally over 1000 pages. Think pocket dictionaries or any of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels. I am currently using A Clash of Kings. Next, a college ruled notebook. Not a legal pad or just some loose leaf notebook paper. You need to see the scorecards of both innings of the game side by side in the notebook. That’s it.
Naturally, the first enhancement I made to my uncle’s version of the game was to make it an actual contest between two sides rather than just compiling a score for one team. Then, I chose to keep the innings to ten overs maximum. Also, I changed a few of the mechanics of the actual gameplay. As aforementioned, the last digit of the page number (always even page number) determines the amount of runs scored. Well what if the number is 8? My uncle never addressed this. I therefore took the executive decision to add the following rule:
If the page number ends with an 8, then check the second to last digit.
If the second to last digit is even —> 1 run. Nudged to fine leg for a single.
Else, if the second to last digit is odd —> 3 runs. Fast running and impeccable understanding between the batsmen turns two runs into a triple.
In addition, I introduced the possibility of a dot ball. Most of the time, if a page number ends in a 0, the result is a wicket. But when the page number ends in a 0 and is a multiple of 50, then it’s a dot ball. Page 60 is an in-swinging yorker knocking down the middle stump. But page 600 is a good leave, a defensive punch, a swing and a miss, a shot straight to a fielder inside the circle, or any delivery where the result is no runs.
Moreover, before every over, I decide who is bowling that over so that a potential wicket is properly ascribed to the bowler's name. In a 10 over innings, each bowler can bowl a maximum of two overs. However, if a bowler manages to pick up three or more wickets inside of his two overs, he is rewarded with an additional over. But only one bowler is eligible for this bonus over per innings.
These are all the rules I have incorporated thus far in my gameplay. At all times during the game I imagine a match being actually played out between the two teams and I put myself in the shoes of the captain of whichever team is on the back-foot at that moment. I’ll change up the batting order on a whim or based on the real life performances of the batsman in question. I’ll shuffle the bowlers around depending on who is batting, who is bowling well at the other end, much like how a skipper shuffles bowlers in real life. The whole experience feels seamless and I feel as if I am both orchestrating and enjoying a cricket match. Of course, you may easily expand the game to include two players, by either using two separate books (one for each innings) or just one book which both people flip from when it’s their turn.
All in all, it is of course an exercise in pretending. And obviously, it is all down to luck. A number 11 batsman scoring a 100 is not improbable as is the entire lineup being dismissed for less than 10. But lopsided scorecards and impossible innings are part of the fun, often leading to mind-blowing conclusions where sometimes what I am able produce on paper through sheer chance eerily resembles something that could occur or has occurred out on the pitch in a real match. And thus satisfying my need to watch live cricket during these times!
Cricket is a funny game they say, and this is my funny way of playing it.
** An example of a book cricket match I played between two IPL sides that ended in a super over:
Kohli top scored for RCB with a swashbuckling 77* from 25 balls. Delhi Capitals were well on their way to losing by a large margin until Keemo Paul, 71 from 21, heroically took his team to the brink of victory. A super over saw both Delhi batsmen get out for naught after which Kohli hit the winning run.