“Do you know that the Saudi king is brain dead but they are not announcing it,” said Taufiq, a driver at one of the Arab embassies in Washington.
“They first want to arrange a smooth transition and then they will let the world know that the king is dead.” Zahid, the local barber, looked at his watch and laughed.
“Not your fault, Taufiq,” he said. “It is 2:30 a.m. and a sleepy mind can easily conjure up such stories.” Taufiq insisted that this was an authentic piece of information that he heard from two Arab diplomats who were discussing it in his car.
This annoyed Zahid. “You are obsessed with Saudi Arabia but do not see anything wrong in Iran, do you?” he asked.
His comments irritated Taufiq who insisted that Iran was much better than Saudi Arabia. This led to a heated argument between the two but their dispute ended abruptly when Waseem, the captain of their cricket team, shouted: “How’s that?” and looked at the umpire.
“Not out,” said the umpire, who was a member of the batting team. Waseem did not agree. So he went to the umpire and started arguing with him. “He was out, bowled, middle wicket,” he said.
“Yes, but it was a no ball,” said Khalid, the captain of the rival team who too rushed to the field to defend the umpire. Taufiq and Zahid, who were fielding at the boundary, joined Waseem and demanded that the batsman, Karim, be declared out.
This was the first semi-final of the Northern Virginia Ramadan Cricket Tournament, 2013, played in an empty parking lot of a shopping plaza.
All the players were doing jobs that did not require them to report to work in the morning, such as driving cabs. The match always started after the night prayers and ended minutes before the pre-fast food. The players, and their supporters, went home after the morning prayers, woke up in the afternoon, worked till late in the evening and played cricket from midnight to dawn.
Since in these matches the umpire is always from the batting team, few expected him to be impartial. So Waseem went back to his position, muttering: “dishonest, totally dishonest.”
Karim made six more runs but in the next over he tried to sneak a shot past the slip and the ball went straight to the eager hands of a fielder. This time the umpire had no choice. He had to accept the appeal.
As the next batsman walked towards his position, Hafiz Saheb, the resident priest of the Virginia Tavern, said: “We need more light. Let’s buy some flood lights tomorrow.”
“But where are the connections?” asked Jozi, another night cricketer.
“See, the lamp post? It has three outlets,” Hafiz Saheb said.
“But if you use them, you will end up in jail,” said Jozi. “Those belong to the county. You have to have your own connections and have to pay for them as well.”
“This is what I do not like about this country. You have to pay for everything,” said Hafiz Saheb. “No fun.” “Yes, that’s why we do not have load-shedding in this country,” Jozi replied.
Hafiz Saheb ignored him and focused on the cricket. The next batsman was a good hitter, so he pleased the crowd with three sixes and two fours. But his next drive hit a car parked on the other side of the pitch. He was out.
Although the parking lot was almost empty, some shopkeepers of this plaza parked their vans overnight as well. Since they wanted to continue to play here, organisers of this Ramadan night cricket made a new rule: if the ball hits the car, the batsman will be considered out.
Each team played eight overs. The first team made 93 runs in eight overs but the second only made 70. Next, the winners played yesterday’s winners.
Since both teams had good bowlers, this turned out to be a low scoring match. There were few sixes and fours. But the fielding was good, so we witnessed spectacular catches and run outs.
One of the balls in the second match kept low and hit the batsman on the pads. “That’s out, leg before wicket,” said Hafiz Saheb.
Jozi reminded him that they did not have LBWs in this tournament.
“Remember, we have no flood lights. So in these dim lights, nobody will accept an LBW decision. We will end up arguing all night.”
“Why can’t the batsman be honest and tell the umpire he is out?” Hafiz Saheb asked.
“We are only honest when we go to an American store,” said Jozi. “See, how we haggle over prices when we go to a desi store but quietly pay the marked price when we go to Macy’s.”
“That’s because our shopkeepers are not honest,” said Hafiz Saheb. “Remember that halal meat shop in northwest Washington which sells non-kosher meat as halal.”
“Exactly, we do not trust each other,” said Jozi.
As the match progressed, three policemen came and asked the spectators if they could explain how cricket was played. “It is like baseball,” said Waseem who was waiting for his turn to bat. Since he knew little about baseball, he could not define the link.
So they asked Waseem to simply explain the rules of the game.
“OK,” he said, “there are two teams of 11 players each, there are batters and pitchers called bowlers, each bowler makes six deliveries in an over and then another bowler takes over.”
The policemen stopped Waseem and asked him to explain whenever something exciting happened. In an eight-over match, things happen very rapidly, creating a lot of excitement. So the policemen also got interested and watched an entire innings.
“This is better than getting drunk and breaking car windows. Keep playing,” said one of them as he drove away.
The news of the match also reached the nearby mosque. Three preachers came from there and asked the crowd to say their morning prayers at the mosque.
Back home, people do make false promises to persuade the preachers go away but here they did not. Instead, most of them told the preachers that after the match they would be too tired to go anywhere but home.
Back in the old country, there’s plenty of food at such matches but there was no food here. Just bottled water and chewing gums.
As the match ended, supporters lifted the players on their shoulders and started shouting. The commotion brought the policemen back and they too joined the supporters in congratulating the winning team.
After the match, all had their pre-fast meals, even those who did not plan to fast. Then they prayed together and went home to take a few hours’ sleep before heading to work.