Cricket at 12,000 ft above sea level!

Cricket at 12,000 ft above sea level!

 

People call cricket a ‘junoon’, an obsession… but if you feel this is limited to just watching the IPL every day for weeks, you need see the young Lamas play this game.

I stood there in biting cold outside the Pin Valley Monastery, mesmerised by the young Lamas playing this game. They had lit a bonfire in a drum and the players rushed to it after every over for a minute or two of warmth. Because the fired-up drum also did the job of the wickets, the most sought after fielding positions were the ones surrounding it!

I asked one of them, ‘Why don’t you guys get in your room and stay cozy doing something else?’

‘We love cricket,’ is all they said with excitement all over their faces. A senior Lama too happened to be there and he told us that the dream of these kids was to make it to the Indian cricket team.

I said, ‘Nothing is impossible.’ We really need to have players who can sprint even 12,000 ft above the sea level where the plainsman finds it difficult to even walk without getting breathless. Cricket is indeed in the heart of every Indian is what Specky murmured as we slowly made our way back to the monastery parking.

 

Arvind Passey
11 September 2013