Sunday Cricket Lessons - The Kids

The young fellows landed up on Sunday. Daksh, all serious and polite as usual, Anish, intelligent and shy, Aarav full of mischief now, Hardik, serious and brave and Satwik, who looks a lot fitter and much more bolder now. Of course Aarav was missing on Saturday so I asked him where he was. 'Arre, yesterday baad (flood) came sir. My shop had water till here. Activa was in water till here...'. I calmed him down and made him take catches.

A Happy Lot - Anish, Hardik, Aarav, Daksh and Satwik

These days they are told to do drills and the able young man who comes every Saturday and Sunday in all seriousness helps me with them. They do batting drills and then do some knocking. I made them take 50 catches apiece and got them used to metric driven routines.

Aarav finishing his shot while others are in their backlift

Luckily the other boys don't come on the weekends so I allow them to play in the nets and get a feel of it. They wear their pads and gloves and helmets (most cannot wear them on their own and need help) and they struggle to walk to the wicket but they somehow manage it and enjoy their time in the nets. Anish has picked up surprisingly quickly, Daksh steady as always and pretty good as a bowler, Satwik shows great courage and is learning to concentrate, Aarav is showing a talent to hit the ball and is not scared and Hardik is developing fine too.

Aarav monkeying around while others are listening

They get hit with the cricket ball once in a while but not a squeak. I ask them if they are ok and they say - Yessir, we are fine.

All in sync - pretty good

After their time in the nets I let them play a match and they love it. The make up their own rules and have a ball playing in the nets. Last Sunday I got them to pose for a few pics. 'Why sir?' they asked. 'So I can show everyone this is a picture of the most useless cricketers I know,' I said. 'Siiir,' they said and laughed. Aarav said 'I can throw like this sir.' I told him to focus on his work and he made a face.