Switch Hitters – The journey so far

A nomadic cricket club in Twickenham born out of friends, friends of friends and once strangers but now brothers.

2014: It all started simply out of boredom and general interest in the game of cricket, myself and few school friends (who I’ll be introducing shortly) decided to start playing cricket again. Previous experience was in school but at this point in time that was years and years ago so to say we were out of nick was an understatement.

Before moving on, it’s time for the introductions of the originals. Number one, enter Sabi. Probably the most experienced in the game in the beginning since he was coached by the legendary spin wizard Aussie, Shane Warne himself. And trained so well if I may say in the dark arts of leg spin that he can turn the ball irrespective of the surface. Yet despite all his talents with the ball, his batting was even better.

Next up? His twin brother (really?) Ashwinder aka Ash. The only way to tell them apart is when they played the game. Ash would be twice as fast when bowling and half as technically astute when batting. But don’t let that fool you; bowl in his preferred area and prepare to concede a boundary.

And finally the last member of the OG4, Rahil. The speedster from Lahore, although he’s hardly been there. When facing him even the best will struggle to lay bat on ball, simply because half the balls would be too quick and the rest…well lets just say they’ll be out of your reach. When batting he prefers to slap the ball through the off side, reminiscent of good old Indian soap operas.

So those were the first men who started the club without knowing what shape it would take in the years to come. The first couple of games were in the park with strangers and played soft balls. No pads, makeshift stumps and frequent variable bounce on irregular pitches which are better described as the flattest part of the park where there was the least amount of grass.

2015: These games slowly ignited the passion so old kits were dug out, indoor net sessions booked and techniques honed. This would continue for a while until the expense of £30 per hour started getting out of hand since one hour clearly wasn’t proving to be enough. So we searched for alternatives and found Marble Hill Park in Twickenham. The £5 per hour open nets were appealing with only the typical British weather raining on our parade, quite literally a lot of the time.

2016: More equipment was purchased; now the netting had become frequent and the skills refined. Enough cricket was being played that just nets weren’t enough to satisfy the cravings. I decided to join the local club, Spelthorne CC, soon after moving into the area.

2017: However due to the distance from the rest of the group, it was not feasible for them to attend the matches so I was the sole member to play actual matches. 40 over games practically every Sunday, home and away. I did it for a season and half but without any friends joining the club there really wasn’t enough motivation to keep playing.

2018: It was at this time that another member, Sunny, was introduced to the nets session group. After not playing for a decade, Sunny got into cricket very enthusiastically and as the rustiness started to wear off, he too wanted to dab into a game of actual cricket and so he joined the same club for a match. We played one game together, his debut match but that was about it. The season has practically over and by the time next season would start, Switch Hitters would have taken shape in it’s entirety.

2019: New year and new members. Another school friend Subhan was now back in the mix and keen to start cricket too. Ashwinder also introduced his cousin Dushant and Dushant introduced Gurmel. Sabi had brought in Kamal and by the time summer had arrived we had become members at Marble Hill Park and registered as Switch Hitters. A name derived on the spot and through sheer lack of creativity.

More and more people continued to join as the weeks passed by in the summer. Next batch of new comers included another old friend in Pritam joining us again (as he had played a solitary net session last year) and a brand new introduction, not just to the club but to the game of cricket itself, Abdullah, who I must say would surely get into the Palestine playing XI, should such a team exist.

May, 2019: With enough people, we mustered enough effort to book the cricket pitch one Sunday in the same park and tried to play a (gasps) real game of cricket, after years and years of nets only. The result of this was predictable. Since there are no consequences in nets; the batting had remained fragile from a survival perspective. See the thing is that in nets, all the batsmen bat their allocated time regardless of the number of dismissal and thus have not learnt the art of survival. This meant the game of cricket we played had several lives for each batsmen, no LBW dismissal and because we lacked an opposition nor did we have enough players to field two sides, the game was played in pairs with each pair batting out a certain number of overs and then fielding for the rest. The positive from all this? At least we had an outing on the pitch by this point.

July, 2019: And so we arrive at this point in time. Deciding yet again to book a pitch for another match few weeks later, the difference this time was the intention to play a full 11 v 11 game with the real rules of cricket. ICC would be proud and MCC rules rejoiced. The recruitment process was fervent and somehow 2 weeks before the game, we had gathered 22 players ready to play on the day.

As I write now the game has yet to take place but lets see how it goes. If all goes well, maybe we can start putting together a team on regular basis, challenge other local teams looking for a game and perhaps by next season, we can become an active nomadic team touring grounds in and around London.