From Gully Cricket to Group Chats: Have We Lost the Joy of Just Playing?

There was a time when playing cricket required absolutely nothing except a bat, a ball and enough friends to form two teams. The bat could be a piece of wood. The wickets could be three bricks. The boundary could be an imaginary line that somehow everyone agreed upon until someone hit the ball too far. And the rules? They changed depending on who was winning.

Nobody needed a fitness tracker. Nobody was recording their strike rate. Nobody was asking whether playing cricket would improve their résumé. We simply played.

Today, the picture looks a little different. We have group chats full of people saying, “We should meet sometime,” followed by weeks of absolutely nothing. We watch professional athletes exercise on screens while sitting comfortably on our sofas. We order food instead of walking to get it. We scroll through videos of people playing sports, but somehow struggle to find the time to play ourselves.

And perhaps the strangest part is that we have never been more connected digitally, yet many of us seem to have forgotten how to simply play. Playing, especially during childhood, was rarely about becoming an athlete. It was about being outside, getting bored, making up rules, arguing about whether someone was out, getting angry, laughing five minutes later and going home only when someone shouted their name from the balcony.

Psychologically, there was a lot happening beneath that seemingly meaningless game.

Play gives children and adults, a relatively safe space to experiment. You fail, try again, negotiate, cooperate, compete and occasionally make a complete fool of yourself. You learn that losing does not end the world. You discover that sometimes you are good at something and sometimes your friend is much better. You learn to manage frustration when someone refuses to accept that the ball touched the bat.

In other words, play quietly teaches emotional regulation. But somewhere along the way, we started making everything productive. Exercise must burn calories. Hobbies should become skills. Sports should lead to medals. Free time should become “quality time.” Even relaxation sometimes comes with an objective: Am I resting effectively enough?

The pressure to perform can slowly steal the pleasure from participation.

Think about children today. A child joins a sport and within weeks may encounter coaching schedules, competitions, rankings, performance expectations and parental comparisons. There is nothing inherently wrong with ambition. Competitive sport can teach discipline and perseverance. But when every activity becomes another opportunity to prove yourself, the simple joy of doing something because it feels good can disappear.

Psychology makes an important distinction here between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from enjoying the activity itself. You play because you love playing. Extrinsic motivation comes from external rewards like marks, trophies, praise, recognition or approval.

When the reward becomes more important than the activity, something changes.

You stop asking, “Did I enjoy that?

You start asking, “Was I good enough?”

And that question can follow us far beyond the playground.

Adults experience this too. Going for a walk becomes a step-count target. Running becomes a pace comparison. Joining a badminton game becomes another excuse to feel guilty about being unfit. Even something as simple as dancing in your room can suddenly feel embarrassing because we have become accustomed to watching perfectly choreographed people online.

Perhaps we need to remember that not everything we do needs to be impressive.

You can be terrible at football and still enjoy kicking a ball around. You can play badminton without knowing the rules properly. You can cycle slowly. You can dance badly. You can play cricket with friends and spend more time arguing than actually playing. That still counts.

There is also something deeply social about informal play that our screens struggle to replicate. Gully cricket wasn't just about cricket. It was about belonging. The same people who annoyed you during the match were often the people you called the next evening. Friendships were built through repeated ordinary interactions rather than carefully scheduled meet-ups. That matters because social connection is not created only through conversation. It is often created through shared activity.

Maybe this National Sports Day, the question isn't whether India can produce more champions. Of course, excellence matters. But alongside the pursuit of medals, perhaps we should also ask whether we can create a culture where people feel free to play without needing to be good at it.

Because a healthier relationship with sport may begin when we stop treating every game like a test. Maybe the real victory is not always winning.

Sometimes it is putting the phone down, calling a friend, stepping outside and hearing someone yell, “One last game!” And actually saying yes.