Street cricket chronicles: Deuce ball, Half out, and the great Olympian spirit of West Bengal

We started with Delhi, moved to Karnataka, and now head to West Bengal for our next edition of the street cricket chronicles. Through this series we hope to bring out the cricket culture in different cities at the most amateur levels: whether it is on the streets, in the gullies and driveways and terraces, on beaches, or in the parks. In this episode we chat with two guests who grew up in Kolkata and Asansol in the 1980s and 1990s. Talking points: Rubber, Deuce, Rubber-Deuce and Cambis balls Influence of the long monsoon and early sunset on the street cricket dynamics Seasonal switch between cricket and football Genteel Kolkata and the not-so-genteel Asansol Parents as match referees Why Harbhajan Singh would have struggled in street cricket in West Bengal Pocket money? What is that alien concept? The contentious wide calls and the self-regulating rule Bricks as stumps and real-time Hawkeye problems Cricket as an individual sport and the near-universal chronology of batting and bowling line-ups The popularity of Abdul Qadir in the '80s in Kolkata and how his bowling action was the most imitated in the streets Mimicking Azhar's fielding, Srikanth's mannerisms, Hudson's batting stance Participants: Abhishek Mukherjee (@ovshake42) Shom Biswas Mahesh Sethuraman (@cornerd) * Lead image from here Related: Abhishek Mukherjee's writings at Cricketcountry, Firstpost, Sportstar Abhishek Mukherjee on Azharuddin's 182 against England at Eden Gardens in 1993 Abhijit Gupta on the glossary of gully cricket in Kolkata Just another Bengali playing cricket on the streets Street Cricket Chronicles from Delhi – 81allout archive Street Cricket Chronicles from Karnataka - 81allout archive