Gujarat wins 13th blind cricket tournament

Maya Sharma and L. Subramani; www.NDTV.com; Bangalore; date?

Gujarat won the 13th 'National Cricket Tournament for the Blind' defeating Haryana in the finals at the Chinaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on March 5, 2006.

The tournament also became a platform to select best players for the national squad that will play the forthcoming cricket World Cup for the Blind to be held in South Africa in December 2006.

The five-day tournament saw players in high spirits. In a game where seeing the ball well is considered so important, the cricketers demonstrated the importance of mind over matter.

Unlike the regular game, blind cricket has a slightly altered rulebook, which makes it both safe and exciting for the players. There are four B1 (totally blind), three B2 (partially blind), and four B3 (partially sighted) players. A run scored by a totally blind player is counted as two runs, and if he hits a boundary, eight runs are added to the score of his team. B1 players have a runner. Bowling too is done very differently. A B1 player has to bowl 40 per cent of the total overs.

Players can identify the ball's movement through the rustling noise it makes. Bowling is strictly underarm. This is done to ensure that the players are not injured. The wickets are made of iron, which help players identify the sound when the ball hits them.

The rules are defined by World Blind Cricket Council, which oversees the sport in the test-playing nations in the world. In India, the game is managed by the Association for Cricket for the Blind in India.