First things first : What is RPL?? Any wild guesses? No? Ok, here it is, Roomies Premier League. The name has not been in wide use, but I think the rules of the game remain the same, no matter where the game is being played. Let me give you a brief history of the game. First year in hostel: Under ragging period, we were so terrified to even peep out of the windows in fear of our dreaded seniors. So,  after college, we had to put ourselves inside our rooms, locked up from outside. Checked and double checked!! During this time, the foundations of our version of the game were laid down. Although, the game has it’s roots deeper than that, I will only talk about the rules that we officially had incorporated into the RPL. 1. Teams: As in any other game, here also we had two teams. But, the uniqueness was, the number of players in a team was never constant. Depending on the availability, or rather the willingness of our roomies. During exams, we had teams with as low as 1 player on each side, while on the other hand, during the start of our semesters, the number of players would sometimes even rise to 8 on each side. 2. Venue: Most of the time, it was inside our rooms. However, at times, when the teams got bigger than the rooms can accommodate, we moved out into the corridors. 3. Equipments: We are talking about cricket here. So we would certainly find similar equipments that are used in ODIs and Test Matches. BAT: Our definition, it just had to be hard enough to hit the ball without falling apart. Be it a real bat, a broken leg of a chair and when none of the above were available, we managed to get a wood piece from our mess which would have been burnt away to cook our food that night. BALL: A tennis ball preferably, a plastic ball was also used sometimes, in some versions of the game, some teams were often seen using a football. 🙂 No definite rules here. OTHERS: None. Oh!! for wickets, we had chairs. 4. Format: Just like ICC now-a-days has at-least 3 versions of the game, we also had 3 versions of the game. ODIs: These were single matches, which were to be played till the end, and were supposed to be the shortest version of the game. Tests: A bit longer version, these matches took anywhere between a day to 5 days, to be completed. Series: A series of never ending matches, where the same teams meet and keep a record of matches won and lost. This was the most preferred version of the game since we could brag about our stats, records, make fun of others’ performances. 5. Rules: Now the finer details of the game. These rules were the most important. They were followed by each and every player honestly, though sometimes, the match had to be called off, not because of bad light or rain, but because of differences in opinions since we didn’t have an ICC like organization who could sort out the problems. A. How to get a batsman out? In addition to the normal rules prevailing in international cricket, we had amended the rules to suit RPL. Here they are:

• One tip one hand out
• 3 consecutive body touches (ball hitting your body, a replacement for LBW)
• hitting the ball directly to one of the walls
• 3 consecutive misses

B. Bowling rules ?

• Under-arm compulsory
• Speed limit – 60 km/hr
• Body line bowling allowed
• Negative tactics were encouraged

C. Runs?

• One run if you connect the ball with the bat
• No sixes allowed, you are out if you hit a six
• For fours, you should ground the ball at-least once before it hits the walls
• 0 runs if you don’t hit the ball
• No running between the wickets

D. Match abandoned due to ?

• Lunch, dinner, breakfast or class time
• Power failures during night matches
• Disagreement between players (no umpires!!)
• Ball hit out of the room through the windows/balcony
• A broken bat

I might have forgotten to add other rules of the game. So I kindly request anybody and everybody who are familiar with the rules to add to this list. RPL rocked. I miss them so much.