 Tennis ball cricket was pioneered in the densely populated India and Pakistani cities such as Karachi, Calcutta, Lahore and Mumbai, where cricket grounds and protective gear are not common.It became popular in the early 1990s, and is responsible for grooming the talents of the cricketers such as Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Akram and Shoaib Akhtar at an early age.In this game a more difficult version of tennis ball is used.