It was the cool of a winter night, and only 10 p.m., so I went for a jog around the neighborhood, and just at the end I witnessed a cricket pick-up game disaster.

Three guys in their 20s … I decided they were Pakistani, because of their clothes, but I could be wrong … were knocking the ball around in the women’s parking lot at Khalifa University.

The game normally is played with two teams of 11. But when you have only three guys … you get creative.

So they broke up the duties like this:

One guy “bowled” — which is what cricketeers call pitching. He stood out in the middle of the parking lot, about 25 yards from the batter … who was standing in front of an orange pylon left behind on the lot. The pylon was meant to represent the wicket, behind the batter. A target, that is.

The third guy was in the field, to the left of the batter. Sort of where a third baseman would play in a baseball game. And not because the batter was right-handed (and he was), but because the bowler was pitching toward the fence of Khalifa University at a 45-degree angle … and any pitch that was off or that the batter couldn’t hit … would come off the wall at another 45-degree angle — and straight to the one fielder.

It was actually sort of ingenious, the way they positioned themselves. And they had picked a prime spot: A well-lighted parking lot with about as much open space as anywhere in the area, with trees on the edge of the street that might even keep a batted ball from ending up in traffic, and the Khalifa U wall behind them, to keep the ball from rolling into the night.

So they were going along, the bowler running up and uncorking a pitch in that weird, windmilling, locked-elbow motion, and the batter smacking one pretty good, now and again, with the flat cricket bat.

It seemed like fun, for a Saturday night in a country without many (any?) sports facilities for Regular People.

But then disaster struck.

In cricket, a ball is in play if it hits a bat. At all. In any direction. This particular batter was trying to get the ball back out toward the pitcher and the one fielder, but cricket players do a lot of deflecting — what baseball people would call “foul balls” –  and I think by force of habit the batter decided he only wanted a piece of a bowled ball … and it went up high and fast and backwards.

And flew over the fence around Khalifa University.

A disaster! Because the fence is about 8 feet high, with pointy bars at the top and, besides, the inside perimeter is patrolled by a couple of security guards all night. (In case someone wants to, I don’t know, walk through the commons at midnight?)

The cricketeers all pressed their faces up against the bars of the fence. I think they could see the ball. The went to a gate and shook it, to see if it was unlocked. It wasn’t. They chatted quietly among themselves. I could hear the disappointment.

As I walked away, they seemed about ready to give up. Clearly, they didn’t have another ball, and the pick-up game was over.

I felt bad for them. They had been having such a nice time. If I owned a cricket ball, I would have loaned it to them. But I don’t.

I wonder if one of the security guards ever came around … and whether they managed to explain to him that they had lost their ball, and could he give it back?

I like to think that happened. And they went back to bowling and batting a few minutes later. I like the idea of pick-up cricket in a parking lot at 11 o’clock at night.