10 rules Gully Cricket fanatics swear by

Im sure each one of you has played gully cricket, or backyard cricket as is known in Australia, at some stage of your lives. It is a spontaneous variant of the game of cricket that is played by people on the street, in parks, car parks, beaches etc. You can often find people playing gully cricket in the sub-continent in particular, where spacious grounds suitable for playing cricket are limited.While the intention of the players is to play cricket, many aspects of gully cricket are different from the traditional aspects of the game. This is so in order to suit the surroundings that one is playing gully cricket in.Here are ten rules of gully cricket that everyone swears by:

#1 Bumps or flats

In the absence of a coin, the toss is decided by spinning a bat in the air. The back of the bat is called “bumps” and the front of the bat is called “flats”. Whichever captain calls correctly gets the option of choosing whether to bat or bowl. Most people are enamoured with batting and find the idea of fielding first less appealing, which is why 99% of the time the team that wins the toss chooses to bat.

#2 Umpire and wicket-keeper from batting team

Gully cricket is often played with just 8-10 players. With the 8-10 players being split into two teams, the fielding team requires all its team members to be fielding. As a result, the umpire at the bowling end and the wicket-keeper tend to be from the batting team itself.

#3 No runs behind the wicket

As a result of a shortage of players, it is generally agreed by the two teams to not have any runs behind the wicket. While the batsmen can get caught behind the wicket, no runs are allowed in that area. Whenever the batsmen unintentionally hits behind the wicket, it is basically a dot ball with the delivery being counted.

#4 No LBWs

When international umpires find it difficult to adjudicate LBWs, what chance do people on the street have? Apart from LBW decisions being difficult to adjudge, an “out” or “not out” decision will lead to a lot of argument from the side that the decision goes against. In order to avoid unnecessary arguments and fights, it is wise to not have LBWs as a mode of dismissal in gully cricket.

#5 Baby Over

When a bowler bowls badly by conceding too many runs off the bat or giving away too many extras, he can be taken off from the attack after bowling a minimum of 3 balls with another bowler taking over to complete the over.

#6 Joker

When the number of players available is an odd number, the teams are divided into two even groups with the one member left out assuming the role of the joker. The joker belongs to both sides and is normally a player who is the weakest of the lot. The advantage in being the joker is the fact that he gets to bat twice, once for either side, and he doesn’t usually get to bowl.

#7 Trials

A batsman normally gets a couple of trial deliveries from the bowler in order to get some batting practice before starting his innings. When a batsman has no intention of receiving trials before he starts his batting, but gets out for a duck off the very first delivery, he pretends to the fielding team that he thought it was a trial delivery and refuses to leave the crease.

#8 One-hand, one-pitch catch

In confined spaces where batsmen are not allowed to play big shots, a batsman is deemed to be out when the fielder catches the ball with one hand as long as the ball has bounced only once. The fielder can take the support of his chest or any other part of his body in order to claim the catch but can’t take the support of his other hand at all.

#9 Single batsman

When the batting team has all, but one of its batsmen dismissed, the batsman that is left can continue the innings till the time that he gets out or till the overs expire, whichever is earlier. In such scenarios, one member from the batting team that has already been dismissed acts as the non-striker, so that the fielding team can effect a run out at both ends.

#10 Boundary Out

Gully cricket is often played in areas where there are a lot of window glasses and cars parked. Therefore, in order to discourage batsmen from hitting big shots, the batsman on hitting the ball over the boundary is deemed to be out. If the ball touches anything inside the boundary, like a tree or wall, and then carries over the boundary, the batsman is not out, and he is, instead, awarded four runs.