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It's 8:40 on a Saturday morning, and the parking lot outside a cricket arena in Bengaluru's Marathahalli is already packed. Inside, 27 men, software engineers, sales executives, managers, have traded their weekend lie-in for eight overs of box cricket. Every boundary ricochets off the nets. Every wicket is celebrated like a World Cup moment. It's amateur cricket. But it doesn't feel amateur at all.

Welcome to Gully Cricket 2.0.

For decades, Indians had exactly two ways to play the game: an informal match on the street, or the highly structured world of clubs and academies. ...