Chennai: In the midst of hype over the cricket World Cup in South Africa, this one is a different World Cup. Different for the spirit and the human endeavour behind it. Here there are no qualms about playing against Pakistan. This is about the second World Cup for the Blind, which Chennai will be hosting from December 3 to 14, when the final encounter will be played out at the prestigious M A Chidambaram Stadium. Bangalore is the other venue where some matches will be played. Ram Karan Sharma, captain of the Indian team, is all confident that this time they would win the cup, which went to South Africa when the inaugural event was held in Delhi in 1998. This year's cup was to be originally hosted by New Zealand but the Kiwis cried off at the last minute citing lack of financial support. The second edition is being supported by oil majors Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL). Hence, it has been named Petro Cup. The 17-member Indian team is being sponsored by Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC). Besides India, the other countries who participated in the 1998 tournament were Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, England, Australia and South Africa. This time except New Zealand, all the others will be playing. The matches will be on a round-robin basis with six matches in the league round and four teams entering the semi-finals. What is Blind Cricket? It is no different from the other cricket except that it is played with a hard plastic white ball with bearings inside that make noise so that the ball's movement is tracked. The rules of the game are the same with umpires with proper eyesight guiding the game that is a 40 over contest. Only the stumps are metallic and joined with each other so that the players can recognise that the batsman is out. Bowling is underarm and the ball should be pitched before a line drawn across half of the pitch. Wickets in Blind cricket generally fall clean bowled. Some get out through catches also. Stumping and run out are also done. No balls and wides are not in short supply, which the players say are only natural because of their handicap. Each over should be completed in four minutes. Not all the players are completely blind. There are three categories of players with difference in their blindness. In the Indian team there are four players with B3 blindness. They can see 3/6, that is, three to six metres. Three players belong to B2 category, who can see 2/6, two to six metres and four players who cannot see anything. There are two extra players in each category. The same regulations apply to other teams too. The Association of Cricket for Blind in India (ACBI) and the National Federation of Blind (NFB) are the main force behind the cricket for the visually impaired, particularly George Abraham, ACBI Chairman, a totally sighted person who became partially blind after an accident. The Indian captain, 34-year-old Sharma, is a veteran of Blind cricket and the oldest member of the team, whose average age is 27 years. He played in the last Cup in Delhi and aggregated over 350 runs including a century against South Africa. The Blind cricket is also not exempt from the usual excitement that surrounds a match between India and Pakistan. Recounts Sharma. In the match against Pakistan in 1998, he went five down when his side needed 40 runs in 4.4 overs. There were a number of spectators, a sizeable number of them being men in army uniform. They goaded him saying even if India loses the Cup it does not matter but do not lose to Pakistan. Sharma says he did not realise what happened to him. "I played the first two balls and hit them for boundaries. One ball I missed. The next over was a maiden. But the 38th over changed everything as it yielded 26 runs and we were through against Pakistan," Sharma says triumphantly. India won all the league matches but over confidence on the part of some players cost them the semi-final and India was out. The other Indian players include debutant Sanjeev Dalal, a BA final year student in S D College, Ambala Cant, Rajinder Verma, a music teacher in Rajasthan, Nirmal Kumar, doing his MA in Ajmer, had played in the last Cup and he belongs to B3 category in sight. The players say their playing cricket is one more attempt at telling the world they want to be as normal as others can be and to strive for further excellence in various fields.

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