For them, cricket is the window to their souls…

As a youngster, the most basic batting tip I had received from my cricket coach was to ‘watch the ball’. Though it bemused me back then, I realised its significance as I grew up and watched a lot of cricket. I understood how important it was for a batsman to have his head in a steady position and his eyes focussed keenly on the bowler’s hand. This became a rule of thumb to me — if I cannot watch the ball well, I cannot hit it for a scoring shot. But on Thursday, I experienced a completely new phenomenon. I saw batsmen hitting the ball all over the park and accumulating big runs at a strike rate of well over 200. The difference? They could not ‘watch’ the ball, and yet they were scoring runs at will.

I was at the Holkar Stadium in Indore, witnessing India take on England in the second T20 Cricket World Cup for Blind. It is not that I had not heard about cricket for visually impaired before. I had a fair knowledge of it; not because I am a cricket journalist, but even as a layman. But watching the proceeding from close quarters was a new experience altogether. The buzz for the game in the city for last few days was palpable, and the massive turnout (not a fan of conveniently rounded figures, but easily over 10,000) was on the expected lines.

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While there were people in huge numbers, a majority came just out of curiosity to see how the blind could play cricket. A very little percentage was aware of the rules of blind cricket. Some of them had a logical question for me: “How will they hit the ball if they cannot watch it?” A rule of thumb, it is, I knew. But I had an answer for them. “They play with rattle balls. They can’t watch it, but can hear it.”

The boundaries were short; the bowlers bowled underarm; the ball made sounds. Playing blind cricket, thus, seemed to be an easy job. Think again. This version of cricket requires a different type of skill set. Being good with bat and ball won’t help you. You need to have a pretty good ear too. Ask England’s limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan, and he will vouch for it.

Before getting into the details, let us first understand the rules of cricket for visually impaired.

To begin with, all the players in the squad are not fully blind. The playing XI consists of a certain number of fully blind (called B1 category), partially blind (called B2 category) and partially sighted, but less impaired than B2 (called B3 category) cricketers. They are positioned on the field accordingly, as the B1 players are placed inside the 20-yard circle. The others get to field in the outfield. The wicketkeeper is also one of them.

The ball has a hard-plastic design and is filled with some ball bearings so that it can be audible on the field. Bowling is underarm. The boundaries are much shorter. The bowler has to ask ‘ready’, and he can only deliver the ball once the batsman says ‘yes’. He mostly relies on the wicketkeeper’s voice to judge the target, i.e., the stumps. The ball must reach to the batsman after bouncing at least twice.

Since bowling is underarm, the batsmen mostly tend to play the sweep. Underarm bowling may give you an impression that the balls are being delivered at a slower pace. But these bowlers can bowl at high speeds too. In fact, the balls are hurled at over 100 kph and in some cases, around 130-140 kph too (England have really fast bowlers, but Indian captain Ajay Reddy and Deepak Malik are perhaps the fastest in the world according to the Indian coach). The batsmen, thus, rely on their enhanced sense of hearing. They say, your senses are enhanced once your sight is taken away. It holds true for every single player.

[inline-quotes] You can’t get over Virender Sehwag’s hand-eye coordination that is the envy of surgeons. Had you seen Sukhram Majhi (32-ball 67*) and Ganesh Mundakar (34-ball 78*) bat in Indore against England, I can bet you would start swearing by their hand-ear coordination. [/inline-quotes]

The ’keeper, as I wrote, is one with partial sight. He can collect throws better than others. But at the bowling end, things are not that easier. For example, if a B1 player is bowling and he has to collect a throw, he lies down on the ground behind the stumps with his hands fully stretched so that he does not miss the ball and it does not go for overthrows. This can potentially be dangerous since there is always a chance of the ball hitting him on his face. But the players are used to it. In fact, they practise these scenarios during their fielding sessions too.

The fielders help each other. When a shot is played, the keeper usually guides the fielders by shouting. They rely on the sound created by the rattling ball to track its position on the field. Athletes usually love to play in front of big crowds. But India’s visually impaired players found it a bit difficult to concentrate while fielding when more than 10,000 people turned up in Indore. In spite of this, they were brilliant in the field, affecting four run-outs.

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These were some of the challenges the players face once they step into the field. However, there are plenty of challenges off the field too.

Helping set new rules

In the words of Mahomed-Abraar Khatri, the 26-year-old English B1 cricketer, visually impaired cricketers face challenges on a daily basis: “Getting around is difficult when you are blind, especially in a new country,” he says. India is not new to Khatri. He has been here many times, for India is the place of his origin. His family has roots in Bhanvad, about 80 km away from Jamnagar — the cradle of Indian cricket that gave the world Ranjitsinhji — in Gujarat. However, he was born and raised in London, where he started playing cricket at a small age.

Khatri lost his vision at 15, but he never let that affect him. Within a year he was playing cricket for the England blind team. He also fought a long battle to get inside a mosque with his pet dog Vargo, who used to guide him everywhere. It was difficult since dogs are considered unclean and are prohibited from the place of worship in Islam. But in September 2008, Khatri and his guide dog became the first one to be allowed into a mosque, according to the new ruling. This speaks a lot about the fortitude of Khatri and other blind cricketers in general.

Preparation woes

When you think of World Cup preparations, you usually think players getting access to the training facilities of the highest order and the best of the coaches even during off-seasons. Unfortunately, the visually impaired cricketers are not as fortunate in this regard: “We get to practise only during the camps ahead of international games [which are very few anyway]. Individual practice is very difficult since we don’t have resources and grounds. Also, the players are never together at the same place, which makes practice difficult. So we just focus on jogging and running to keep ourselves fit,” says Sonu Golkar, a local and a member of the Indian blind cricket team. Golkar also acts as a mentor to the Madhya Pradesh blind cricket team, who do not have a coach.

On the field, he says, it is most challenging for the B1 players: “The B2 and B3 players still manage with the little vision they have, but for us, it is all about following the sound and instructions. Even a second’s delay here can cost runs or a wicket. So we need to develop the split-second decision making, which blind players usually don’t have”.

[inline-quotes] Players usually love to play in front of big crowds. But India’s visually impaired players, who rely on hearing, found it a bit difficult to concentrate while fielding when more than 10,000 people turned up in Indore. In spite of this, they were brilliant in the field, affecting four run-outs. [/inline-quotes]

The other challenges, apart from the technical ones, are the lack of awareness for blind cricket: “Our game is not popular, which means we have to struggle for resources. We don’t have grounds, infrastructure or financial support. Even to buy our personal kits, we have to find sponsors.”

This is in stark contrast to the cash-rich versions of the sport, where players do not have to worry about anything else apart from their game.

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The touch-and-feel factor

What I see as the most challenging part of this process is training. Think about it: while we can easily see and comprehend the rules of the game, the visually impaired cricketers rely only on hearing. “It is a challenge,” Patrick Rajkumar, coach of the Indian blind cricket team told CricketCountry. “In normal cricket, the players can see the things being taught to them, which makes it easier to grasp. Here, we rely mostly on the touch and feel factor. We make them understand things conceptually. For example: how to hold the bat, take stance etc. I can tell them how to do it, but they touch me to understand how to do it. So it is a lot of talking and counselling involved in the process.”

The process he is talking about is time-consuming, so he needs to be patient with the players. The good thing here, and perhaps the only easy thing in blind cricket, is that there are not too many technical things involved: “We can’t adopt too many techniques involved in normal cricket, and also we don’t have too many options of shots. So what we do is we improvise on the limited shots we have and master them. As far as the stance is concerned, since they can’t see a Rahul Dravid or a Sachin Tendulkar’s stance, they can’t copy it. So they have their own stance and we just make modifications to it. Their body structures are susceptible to certain kinds of postures, so we can’t really change their stance. We can just modify it and help them adopt techniques which are easy for them.”

It is common for athletes, especially in team games, to learn from their teammates. They grasp things from what they see their colleagues do. They bond with them in a lot of outdoor activities as well. The blind cricketers cannot see each other’s heroics but share a close camaraderie. It is the spirit they share that drives them as a unit. “We really depend upon the team spirit, and therefore we have a buddy system where the B1 cricketers are paired with the B2 or B3 players. They keep talking to them, keep encouraging them,” says Rajkumar. “The B1 players have to bowl 40 per cent of the overs, they have to bat for certain duration, so their contribution becomes vital. And at the end of the day, it’s a team game, not a one-man show. So the team spirit is integral to our efforts.”

The buddy system works off the field as well. Whether it is sharing the rooms, taking meals together, or visiting a place, the buddies ensure they are together always.

Golkar spoke about how challenging it is to train during the off season. Rajkumar adds to it, terming it as a major drawback. “We don’t have a ground where we can practice. We don’t have sponsorships. We train only ahead of the tournaments which are sporadic. So yes, there are a lot of challenges. I rue the fact that I can give only limited time to the team, say a month a year since I too have my family and job to take care of.”

Talking about scheduling challenges, the Indian blind cricket team has already played five games on the trot in the World Cup so far. On January 30, they beat Bangladesh in Delhi; the next day, they were playing West Indies in Faridabad. On February 1, they were in Delhi again, playing arch-rivals Pakistan. The following day, they took on England in Indore, followed by a match against South Africa in Mumbai on February 3. They will be in Ahmedabad on February 4 to take on Sri Lanka and in Kochi the next day to face Australia before they finally get a day’s break.

“The schedule has been an issue. It has been tough travelling up and down. But that’s not a major concern for us. The good thing is blind cricket is reaching places, we are playing in different cities, the players are upbeat about it. So though it has been tough, hopefully, the things will get better.”

The defending champions are in a good place right now in the tournament. Winning four out of the five games has almost sealed the semi-final berth for them. At Indore, they made short work of English bowling by chasing down the target of 159 in 11 overs without losing a wicket. You can’t get over Virender Sehwag’s hand-eye coordination that is the envy of surgeons. Had you seen Sukhram Majhi (32-ball 67*) and Ganesh Mundakar (34-ball 78*) bat, I can bet you would start swearing by their hand-ear coordination.

Though they cannot see, they have their eyes firmly set on winning the title. They do not know when they will get to play next once the World Cup is over. But they hope the tournament ends the apathy towards their game and helps it gain visibility. They hope the world can see what ‘blind cricket’ is.