Street cricket in Bathinda was never only about sport.
It was also about fairness, memory, ego, rotating batting order politics, and who still believed that six over the wall should count as out.
Every lane produced its own version of authority and outrage.
That is what made it so formative.
The games taught people how to argue, perform, recover, and come back the next evening as if nothing had happened.
A lot of local sports pride still sounds like those arguments when you listen closely enough.
Tell us the unwritten cricket rule only Bathinda people still understand.
