Understanding what’s happening during a cricket match doesn’t get any easier when everyone is yelling alternately in Hindi and Bengali and Punjabi.
Or Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Bihladi, or Manipuri.
The air is full of Indian languages and cricket balls nearly every Saturday on ballfields along Playground Road in West Ashley.
There, usually in the late afternoon, a group of Indians and Indian-Americans meet as a part of the Charleston Cricket Club, to play a couple of matches and catch up on what happened that past week.
The English brought the game to India as it expanded its empire there in the 18th century. These guys are bringing regular games to West Ashley.
“Not out! Not out! Not Out!” yells one side, during a recent match. Whenever there is a close call, everyone seems to resort to English as the language they all have in common.
The players, like their languages, hail from all over the subcontinent. They hold jobs like computer programmer and restaurant manager and everything else in between. Narendran Thirumaran Sooriyaprabha, for one, is an engineer at a local diesel engine manufacturer.
One thing everyone seemed to be in agreement on a recent weekend was where to get the best Indian food in the area. Sorry, West Ashley – neither Nirlep nor Taste of India was the consensus favorite. Bombay Bazaar, this day, in North Charleston takes the roṭṭi (Tamil for “cake”).
The club has about 60 members on its Facebook page, and any given match will pit between 15-20 players against a similarly sized team. Usually the games end when one of the teams, traditionally 11 to a side, gets to a preset number of runs. This day, it was 73.
Cricket, as explained by some of the experienced guys waiting for their turn to bat, is pretty easy to follow. It’s sort of a combination of tag and baseball and Red Rover all at the same time.
The bowler heaves the ball overhand, over his shoulder, at the batter who is standing in front of a wicket, comprised of three vertical sticks, that he must protect from losing its cross piece. Knock the cross piece down, and the batter is called out.
The cricket ball used is a leather-covered cork-centered ball about the size and at times the wiliness of the Golden Snitch from Harry Potter’s game, Quidditch.
The pitched ball must first strike the ground before the batsman can have a swing with a bat that resembles a beveled and mitered two-by-four stuck on the end of a baseball grip.
If the batsman connects, the ball can go in any direction, as the pitch, or field, is in the shape of a circle, with defenders scattered about. With the ball struck in play, the batsman runs back and forth between two sets of wickets, generating points.
The members here admittedly play a hodge-podge of rules, so decided upon due to their talent level, numbers, and chances of having a fun match. Matches can take hours, or less, and sometimes a second game is put on, and teams are split up and players reassigned.
The sound of a hit cricket ball is distinctive, especially when megabatsman Deepak Ramesh connects. He’s no Sachin Tendulkar, but today, he’ll do.
Usually, the ball lets out a “pick” noise, as the batsman attempts to lay off the ball, getting the small red orb to hop and skirt along the ground, past the outstretched hands of the opposition.
Ramesh, an engineer by training, is swinging for what approximates for the fences in cricket. The “thok” his bat emits when he clubs the ball is immediately followed by the ball rising high in the air, like a line-drive homerun gunning for the centerfield bleachers.
By design, the ball really can’t fly that far, but if Ramesh strikes it cleanly enough, it will scoot past the agreed-upon boundaries of the circle, scoring six runs for his team.
Siva Agandi, who works in tech services for the county, catches it all on his camera, when he’s not batting or in the field. The programmer prowls matches, snapping shots he later posts on the Facebook page.
And the next Saturday, they’ll be out there again. And they’re very welcoming, beckoning this day to a 15-year-old tennis player to give it a go.
 

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