No matter how barricaded or congested the pathway to Sher-e-Bangla Stadium is, you can’t keep street-children from playing cricket on it. Why not? When there isn’t any international fixture, these are, after all, their playing space, their only heaven.
So, a few boys, in torn, grease-smeared shirts and dirty shorts on bare feet, sneaked into the main road, and began doing what they love doing the most — play cricket with wooden planks and ragged tennis ball. They needn’t bother about the stumps too, for the block-off bars, though taller and broader than them, are more than adequate. The strongest one bullied himself to batting first, but he plainly missed the first ball. The smaller ones broke into unsullied giggles. It was a slight at the bully’s ego and to restore his primacy he wafts one straight over the bowler’s head, only for it to roll onto a policeman’s notice.
He instantly whisked the ball and rebuked them, gesticulating to the direction of a crammed alley. Laying the bat on the barricade, they scampered to the policemen, gazing as though he was an stray intruder into their heaven.
The cop, though, is no mood to oblige. They got quite nettlesome and one even went on to the extend of pulling the armed man’s uniform, which annoyed him even more. He hurled the ball at a distance, and to not lose their precious ball — perhaps their only — they pursued it.