07 July 2009

Cricket Made Simple

I see the first Ashes test match is starting. After much research, I've finally made sense of cricket.

It turns out it's actually very simple. Someone throws a ball at someone else, who whacks it with a wide stick. After that, everyone runs around the field — yes, field, not "pitch," because pitching is what you do with the ball, not "bowling," because we all know bowling involves rented shoes — everyone runs around the field helter-skelter, randomly going in any direction, while the announcer makes up as many funny-sounding phrases as he can think of, like "silly midwicket," "googly," "diamond duck," and "maiden over." Then they announce that the score is "[some three-digit number] for [some one-digit number]," and everyone nods and pretends to understand. They do this for up to three days, taking occasional breaks for tea, and then go home.

Lewis Carroll understood this well in his description of the caucus race:

First [the Dodo] marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (the exact shape doesn't matter, it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no One, two, three, and away, but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.

9 comments:

David said...

I remember watching a cricket match once. As near as I could tell, it all had something to do with the hats.

Unknown said...

5 days for test cricket. How would you even get a result after just 3?

linda said...

You have captured the essence of cricket well.

Anonymous said...

Do keep in mind - that there are more dedicated cricket fans on earth than there are humans inhabiting the North American continent. And that the world's most popular human is a cricketer.

Unknown said...

Excellent to read the,description of the caucus race,also the facts are great.
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