Achha, this De Jong boy... fine passer, very neat, but when he turns, he turns like my old hand-crank apple grinder. Too slow. In Jubbal, we have a saying: 'The best apricot is the one you pick before the crow pecks it.' Barcelona waits one second too long, and the crow has taken the ball. Bina jaldi, no goal.

Beta, when my granddaughter in Delhi calls me to watch women’s cricket, I notice something. In our village women always did the hardest work—carrying baskets of apples down steep paths—yet nobody ever said they couldn’t lift or run. Funny how city rules sometimes forget what the hills have always known. That young bowler from Himachal, the one with the quick arm, she reminds me of the monsoon wind cutting through the terraces.