THE GAME IN QUESTION
‘Who invented cricket? Why are there two batters in at the same time? Why are you out when you’re caught; isn’t the idea just to defend the stumps?’
Incessant questions from Rob, the king of asking questions! However, as always, it got me thinking. It’s good to know someone who questions everything. I’m guilty of accepting things as they are, as if they were carved by Moses in tablets of stone.
As a student of the game of cricket, and many other sports too, the unending questions gave me the idea of inventing a game from scratch. As an example of how it’s done, I imagined a few men standing in a field, one of them throws an apple at a man holding a stick, he then hits the apple as far as he can. After a moment’s hesitation he runs backwards and forwards between two trees until the heavily bruised apple is retrieved. In the process he has invented the game of cricket!
I also thought of the origins of rugby where a footballer at Rugby School picked up the ball and ran with it. ‘In that case, why is a rugby ball oval shaped?’, asked Rob. Another good question to which I had no answer. In the case of similar games, Australian Rules Football uses an oval ball, whereas Gaelic football is played with a spherical ball.
On the spur of the moment I had an idea for a new game, rugby where the players don’t know the shape of the ball until they walk out onto the pitch, and the ball can be changed during the match. ‘That’s a rubbish idea,’ said Rob and, you know, I agreed with him. Surely I could do better than that, although history teaches us that seemingly silly ideas can often be put to good use.
My mind was wandering in all sorts of random directions. Is that the key to creativity, I wondered? My first thought was that, to be successful, my new game must take into account a low boredom threshold for spectators, and encourage crowd participation.
‘If I was re-designing cricket Rob, each team would bat for just fifty balls, with only boundaries counting towards the score. If the batter doesn’t hit the ball far enough to complete a run, known as a ‘dot ball’, one is deducted from the score.’
He looked at me as if I was mad, but I continued in the same vein:
‘You’ll like my piece de resistance! To encourage crowd participation, if a six is hit, an extra three runs is awarded if a fan wearing that team’s shirt catches the ball. If he or she catches it one handed, then an extra four runs is added.’
‘That’s just silly,’ said Rob, laughing.
‘Maybe, but what if you had a live band playing during the game too?’ I said, slightly tongue in cheek.
‘I don’t think so. W. G. Grace would turn in his grave!’
***
Later that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about my new game. I wanted it to be original, rather than just a variation of an existing game. I was aware of a recent ‘variation’, ‘Padel’, a clever combination of tennis and squash, played outdoors.
So, what do people want out of a sport? I thought of ten ‘desirables’:
Fun, cheap to play, good exercise, a competitive element, a reasonable level of skill, can be practiced in the back garden, easy to arrange, improvement is measurable, enjoyable to watch, and with possible audience participation.
After about twenty minutes of blue sky thinking I had invented my new game, and decided to call it ‘juggleball’. It ticks all ten boxes but will it tick the ‘Rob Box’?
***
‘Why any soft ball? How do you define soft?’ This was the first of many questions from Rob as he ‘kicked the tyres’ of my new game.
‘The ball can be headed, kicked and patted, so golf, hockey, cricket and snooker balls aren’t suitable. I want the game to be inexpensive so any soft ball lying around the garage can be used. The smaller the ball, the greater the level of skill, as you will see.’
‘Why only three in a team? Does it have to be three?’
‘No, three is ideal, but to make it easier to arrange, it can be two a side upwards.’
‘How big is the pitch?’
‘It can be played in the back garden or in a park, it’s up to the people playing.’
‘How do you control and hit the ball?’
‘I may have to refine this but, after catching the ball, players need to alternate between kicking, patting and heading, either to pass to another team member or aim at the target. The other team can intercept at any time, and will also take over possession if the ball hits the ground after being passed, or after an attempt at scoring.’
I continued: ‘When it’s the team’s turn to kick, the player can move forward by juggling the ball, like footballers do. If the ball hits the ground, it passes to the other team.’
‘How do you score?’
‘Well if you’re just playing with friends, you need two or three different sized buckets or bowls, at each end of the pitch, to aim the ball at. The smaller the target, the more points are scored. If the game’s played at a more serious level, different sized holes in a piece of coloured plastic could be used.’
‘What about audience participation?’
‘Yes, I nearly forgot. As a twist, every few minutes, the audience can say that a different soft ball should be used,’ I said, drawing on my earlier silly idea for rugby.
‘Yes but how would the audience decide?’
‘Possibly using technology on their phones?’
‘I think it needs a bit of work but let’s give it a try, shall we?’ said Rob. ‘ We could ask our sons and grandsons to help.’
***
A week later, Rob and I set up a pitch in the local park and were joined by his son Adam, grandson Ollie, my son William and grandson Toby. For this experiment we needed plenty of space!
As OAP’s, we agreed that the game is unsuitable for our creaking joints and decided to leave it to the youngsters. I knew there’d be many things I hadn’t thought through, the first, most obvious, was how wide the pitch should be, and what happens when the ball goes out of play. ‘Just a minor detail,’ I said, quite flippantly.
Directing operations, we set up an imaginary side line, marked out with tracksuit tops. The targets were two sets of washing up bowls and buckets, about fifty yards apart, the length of the pitch. I decided that, if the ball crosses the side line, the other team would be awarded a ‘pat in’.
We started the game with a small beach ball; also available were a tennis ball, a light plastic football, a foam ball and a ping pong ball.
***
We played for about half an hour. In the end, Rob and I couldn’t resist joining in for a few minutes, and strained all sorts of muscles that hadn’t been exercised for ages. It was great fun and attracted an audience in the park, who were quite curious. I explained I’d invented the game in about twenty minutes. They looked at me disbelievingly but eventually entered into the spirit, and enjoyed calling for a change of ball every few minutes.
After we’d finished I offered to buy everyone a drink at the nearby Café in the Park, as a gesture of thanks for trying out my new game and for feedback, hopefully including ideas for improvement.
‘I like the juggling aspect of it. I always enjoy watching footballers juggling the ball and this is the first sport where these skills can actually be used.’
‘Maybe limit it to three juggles at a time, otherwise someone who’s good at it could go the whole length of the pitch.’
‘I thought it would be difficult to remember when to pat, kick or head, but I soon got used to it.’
‘Not sure about aiming for different sized buckets. Maybe a toy basketball net would be better, they don’t cost much.’
‘I think there needs to be a minimum distance from the target for shooting, otherwise it can just be dropped in.’
‘Crowd participation for changing the ball makes it more fun. The ref could set a timer on his Smartwatch to beep when it’s time for a change.’
‘It was interesting when we played with the ping pong ball!!’
So generally positive, with some constructive suggestions, but what about Rob?
‘I still think it needs work,’ he said, ‘but well done for trying. Maybe you could modify the rules slightly and we’ll have another go next weekend.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, about as close to a compliment as I could have expected!
He then recalled my slightly frivolous suggestion for cricket:
‘I’ve been thinking about your idea for crowd participation in cricket though. Giving extra runs for the spectators catching the ball would cause chaos, even fights. How about if it was fellow team members? The batter could aim for them. I think it happened in a recent match.’
The next day I drafted an e mail to the England & Wales cricket authorities…
THE END