Cricket Superstar

The other day as I walked back from the bank some kids at a small tire repair shack call me over. They didn’t speak English and my Hindi isn’t grand yet either. We tried to communicate and they brought up a chair for me to sit in. The only few word of English they could string together was “Indian girls nice, yes?” as girls from the local girls college walked by. Then they would say something in Hindi to the girls and point at me everybody around would then give an awkward smile to the four boys. After awhile small school children an there parents began to walk by so the comments to the girls stopped. I decide it was best to start going back to my house which was only a couple hundred yards away. As I began to leave the oldest of the boys who was about my age said “cricket” and made a the bat swinging motion. This intrigued me then he pointed at the clock and held up four fingers. I understood right away and agreed to play I tried telling him I would be back I think he understood but just kept attempting to say my name and holding up four finger and I would hold four fingers back the more he did the more I wondered if I had just agreed to buy four tires or something.
It took about fifteen minutes to walk back to the house since at every roadside booth some one wants to talk to me and I didn’t want to seem rude. When I finally made it back to the house I was very excited since I had been stuck in the house for the past couple of days. I felt like was twelve and just got invited to go play baseball with the big kids. When four finally rolled around I went and met up with my new friend and we started walking to the field which wasn’t very far. When I got there everyone was excited to see me and there was a wide range of ages present. There were a few people who spoke English but none very good. After introducing myself to everyone and shaking a lot of hands people wanted me to bat so I did. The bowler (pitcher) was throwing lightly to me and made it fairly easy to hit. On the fourth throw the ball bounce high and I drove up onto a house next to the small field which wasn’t hard since the filed wasn’t only about 50 ft by 100ft with houses around most of it. We were playing with a ball that was like a tennis ball but slightly heavier. After that the game began it started on a rotten note for me the first ball was hit to me it took a weird bounce and rolled to the boundary which meant four point to the other team. Soon enough my team was up to bat and I was at the bottom of the order. I saw a total of three ball a swing and a miss a weak ground ball and then the bowler hit the wicket on the third. In baseball perspective it would be like if a pitcher (me) was taken out every time some one hit a home run of him and I came into pitch and pitched a ball then a foul ball before giving up a home run.
The next game went a little better for me the put me in another position and I made a sensational catch. Ok it was really just a small jumping catch on a lazy bloop but all the little kids started jumping and cheering to them I was like a superstar cricket player. When my batting time came around again I also did better then the previous time I saw six or seven balls (opposed to the 20-25 average)and collect four point before popping out. Everybody then took a break and by that time somebody who spoke decent English showed up and he translated as everybody tried talking to be. The most popular subject to talk about was my name people called me everything from Caro to Great (I liked that one) and no one quite got it right. The person who spoke decent English gave me a ride home on his motorcycle.
The neighborhood that I played was a poorer one but not close to the poorest for Indian standards. Even though it was the poorest neighborhood I’ve been to it was also where I felt the most comfortable I. Everybody was very nice and wanted to test the English they knew. The cricketers all wanted me to come back and play again.