First game of Cricket with Harsha

Exciting Day! Finally, after trying for more than an year, I played the first game of cricket with my almost 3 year old son Harsha today. As usual, in our living room. Plastic bat, plastic ball and a kitchen drain mat as stumps. It was a tie, with both of us scoring 9 runs each over 4 innings. After 3 innings he was leading 5 - 0 though!

We have sort of played on the same pitch many times before, but never in a form that could be called cricket in principle. For instance, I could never introduce the concept of getting out before - he'd get upset about missing a ball and quit. Before that, there was the struggle with convincing him that he shouldn't have both the bat and ball with himself at the same time. And before that, the fact that one bat and one ball should be involved, not two bats or two balls (he has always been big on pairs).

But today, all elements came together. He was willing to bide his time before he could connect bat on ball. He understood that if the ball hit the stumps, he was out and it was my turn. (Initially, he found ball hitting the stumps too cool to realize that getting out was bad!) He ran with great zest after hitting the ball. He understood the concept of keeping score. More than anything, he was so intent on hitting the stumps when his bowling turn came, he nailed me first ball twice!

For the record, the bat is too short for me.