Cricket
/ On AttentionThe Wicketkeeper Who Counts Birds
Jyoti Balan has taken 412 catches at the international level. She also keeps a life list of every bird she has seen from behind the stumps.
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Photograph — Nihaal Sundar
A Test match is a long kind of attention. Six hours a day for five days, and the wicketkeeper, crouched behind the stumps, is paying closer attention than almost anybody else in the sport.
“You learn, after a while, that your focus is not infinite. It is a budget. You spend it, you rest it, you spend it again.”
— Jyoti Balan
She has, in the margins of her attention budget, kept a careful count of every bird she has seen from behind the stumps in a decade of international cricket. A black drongo over the Eden Gardens. A pair of red kites above Headingley. A crow, always, in Sydney.
The author
Contributing Writer, Cricket & Tennis
Priya writes about the arithmetic of cricket and the loneliness of tennis. She files from wherever the Test match is.
In this issue
The Umpire’s Sabbatical
Cricket · 11 min
The Long Quiet of a Goalkeeper
Football · 18 min
A Small Theory of the Pick-and-Roll
Basketball · 11 min
Contributing Writer, Cricket & Tennis
Priya writes about the arithmetic of cricket and the loneliness of tennis. She files from wherever the Test match is.
