What is ‘khhauw-raas’, ‘Ba_kar batting’? Jammu & Kashmir fan in Pune on joy of travelling for Ranji Trophy | Cricket News

For a cricket stadium that really tests fan-love keeping its access-ways narrow and the stands uncovered, the neutral MCA stadium managed a godly crowd of around 100 for a Ranji game not involving Maharashtra. Surprisingly most was partisan. Unsurprisingly, the teams were Kerala and Jammu & Kashmir, who always attract their domestic diaspora, dispersed across the country, and turn up to cheer their team.
But a Baramulla cricket fan Sheikh Gulzar took passionate following to the next level, as he came all the way leaving behind 6-7 inches snow and chill at home, for a 32 degrees, dusty sunny Pune – only to follow his team’s progress.
Ask him if it’s a surprise J&K topped the group. And he retorts, “We are a good hard-working team, not in quarters just luck. Sabko haraayenge (We will beat everyone)” he says in soft-spoken bravado.
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The textile merchant from Kashmir, has a cousin in Pune. But his immediate cricket connection is J&K all-rounder Aquib Nabi, his next door neighbour. Following his promising career, and taking in the heights of Parvez Rasool’s peak career, Sheikh always found himself excuses to travel around the country following his team. “Mumbai of course, but Jaipur, Chandigarh, Delhi in previous seasons and Jammu this one,” he recalls. “You can say I’m crazy about cricket since the day I started understanding the game.”
Ranji teams are accustomed to empty stadia, but Sheikh Gulzar is glad he’s in the midst of a crowd that is invested in state loyalties, even if he’s outnumbered 50-odd Kerala supporters. The first day has seen J&K struggle to string together a big partnership but that is no deterrent to the Kashmiri hopeful of a fightback.
“Final jaa sakte hai kya….hum final laa sakte hai!” he declares, even as his family, a ser, brother-in-law and two cricket-mad children refuse to leave, even if lunch food stalls aren’t close for fans. “I wish there was a canteen, but it’s fine. We’re here for the team. Following Ranji can’t be about luxury,” he notes, even as he hopes for a similar big stadium in Srinagar.
He gazes around the stadium and at the iconic hillock of MCA, and says, “Home is just like this, but the green expanse of the ground is how all of J&K is. Green grass carpets, but natural. Switzerland feeka pad jaega uske saamne ( … will pale)”.Story continues below this ad
He grew up a Ricky Ponting and MS Dhoni fan, and inss the whole family love cricket because there’s no better ‘spiritual experience’ he says. But funding these trips? “We work our asses off the whole year so that we can take this one month off for cricket. It’s our annual vacation. We have lots of talent back home, but the team needs fans supporting them everywhere,” he says.
He can literally cross the threshold and get autographs from the team, but he taught his children to earn autographs on the ground. “Ground pe autograph ka mazaa kuchh aur hi hai,” he says.
His Pune trip, living in the city, has been about visiting malls and Dilli Darbar, as he leaves thoughts of elaborate waazwan meal for home. “It’s good to experience different flavours, see a different culture,” he says.

He does tip off about a different flavour of pitch-talk that one can expect when J&K bowl. The enunciation is tough in English, he says, but do watch out for “cha_kar bowling” and “Ba_kar batting” (roughly ‘lets go’) and “laagiye” – what wicketkeeper Kanhaiya Wadhawan is expected to yap when batters charge out the crease. But the best cue is “khhauw-raas” hissed with a menace – signalling a yorker, about to be unleashed, and imminently incoming. Sometimes even the Jammu folk in the team don’t get that code. The stumps do the singing. “And then the batsman knows.”