cleared "as a military precaution". SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Sanket Dishka is definitely a chucker. A regiment of boys from nearby Marwari Commercial High School has flocked to Mumbai's Oval, the megapolis's "green lung" tucked in next to 19th century Gothic architecture in the south of the city. It is exam time for India's students but instead of study they have come to the oval, school having finished early, to make the most of the free afternoon. With a concrete block serving as a wicket and two bats they borrowed, without telling, from the school sports department, Ajay Choudhry, 17, tries to hit 18 runs off the last over. Dishka runs up, stutters at the crease, left arm up, his right arm bends, his elbow bends, and then he hurls the tennis ball in a baseball-style pitch. The tactic is too much for Choudhry, who struggles to get off strike. A boy in the outfield screams maniacally as he hurls in the ball to the non-striker's end. The oval is an almost sacred place in Mumbai. Here local boy Tendulkar learned his trade. Littering and spitting and "other acts of nuisance" are prohibited. No organised activity, none at all, except cricket, is allowed. The final rule engraved in the brass plate that welcomes commuters to the oval is this: "Users of the maiden do so at their own risk." On the final ball of the over Ajay skips down the wicket, the ball skips past his bat, and his concrete wicket is stumped.