Cricket Season

From Wikipedia: Cricket was first documented as being played in southern England in the 16th century. The game may have Flemish origin as the word krick(e) was Middle Dutch for stick and there was heavy trade between south east England and the county of Flanders. By the end of the 18th century it had developed to being the national sport of England. The expansion of the British Empire led cricket to being played overseas and by the mid 19th century the first international matches were being held. Today, cricket is the world's second most popular sport after association football, (soccer).

So what in the world is cricket? Well it is not an insect. And it is not baseball, but the season did begin. In a moment of characteristic insanity about three weeks ago, in an attempt to give the boys a genuine Kiwi experience, I signed all three of them up for it. So, Saturday morning at nine a.m. they had to be in three different places across the city to play. (Three boys, two parents, one car, Oy!)

The gist of the game is this. There are two teams. One bats, one fields. Two batsmen are up at a time standing in front of a two different wickets, a three poled thing with two little things balance across the tops of the three poles. These are called bales. The wickets are across from each other at the end of a rectangle called the pitch. The fielding team bowls the ball to just one wicket trying to knock the bales off the top of wicket. The batsman standing in front of the wicket hits the ball away protecting the wicket using a bat like a golf club. When the ball is hit away he and the other batsman can run back and forth between the two wickets scoring as many runs as possible till the ball is thrown back to the wicket keeper (like the catcher) and the play is stopped.

You can score runs this way or in other ways such as how far out of a field of no specified dimensions, (though often an oval) and how you hit the ball out, (did it fly over the line, roll out, bounce out, etc.) . You can get out if the wicket keeper gets the ball before you get back to the wicket or in other ways such as if the fielder catches the ball before it touches the ground or with one hand if it bounced only once, 'one hand, one bounce' rule. All fielding is done barehanded

Depending on the kind of match you are playing it could go on for 20 runs, 3 hours or like a Grateful Dead concert, 5 days. Oh, and you wear all white to play, preferably pleated pants.

If I have made it sound confusing, arcane and indecipherable, it is. I must admit, to my dismay, I did not get to see the boys play their game, only their practices. I was on Ruby duty and went to the 'Have a Go' program and watched seven 3-6year olds alternatively start to learn cricket skills, burst into tears (not Ruby) and eat. It was delightful. I hope to get to to switch with Steve and go next week's games. I will give you an update then. Till then, surf the cable sports stations and find one of the international test matches. Those are the 5 day one. Have a gander and see if you can figure it out.

Happy Cricket Watching.