Photo gallery Bowlers and Batsmen

Photos and text by Jeff Miller

As a springtime rain passed late on a recent Sunday, a group of six friends — five international graduate students from India and another who is living and working in Madison — gathered to play a pickup game of cricket on the still-damp artificial turf of the UW Marching Band’s practice field on the west side of campus.

New to witnessing the sport, I found the following quote from a Chicago Tribune article to be a helpful online primer as I photographed the men having fun:

“Cricket is played with two teams of 11 players each. Each team takes turns batting and playing the field, as in baseball. In cricket, the batter is a batsman and the pitcher is a bowler. The bowler tries to knock down the bail of the wicket. A batsman tries to prevent the bowler from hitting the wicket by hitting the ball. Two batsmen are on the pitch at the same time.”

While these friends can be found at the same location most Sunday afternoons, the 2019 Cricket World Cup is scheduled to be hosted by England and Wales from May 30 to July 14.

1 Ashwin Varadarajan winds up to pitch. Photo by: Jeff Miller

2 Varun Ramesh hits the ball. Photo by: Jeff Miller

3 Dinesh Pattabiraman, at center, smiles as Varun Ramesh, left, hands off the bat to Ashwin Varadarajan. Photo by: Jeff Miller

4 The friends had to make do with a limited number of athletes. Cricket is normally played with two teams of 11 players each. Photo by: Jeff Miller

5 The game was played on turf still damp from a late afternoon rain. Photo by: Jeff Miller

6 Pictured from left to right, Aravind Soundararajan, Ashwin Varadarajan, Vigneshwar Ravisankar, Dinesh Pattabiraman, Varun Ramesh and Guru Yeshwanth. Photo by: Jeff Miller