Monday 9 May 2011

Cricket

A lot of people in countries outside the Commonwealth, if they know anything about cricket at all, probably think it's a strange, genteel, thoroughly eccentric English game, exported by the Victorian empire builders, where players in white clothing spend several days in relative inactivity before shaking hands and declaring the match a draw. It does have it's livelier side, though, and I'd like to give a couple of examples, one old, one very new. I had a phone call from my brother this morning, to tell me he's off work at the moment, having had his arm broken playing cricket last weekend - he was hit by a lifting delivery (sorry for the arcane cricketing jargon) while batting, and has one, and possibly two broken bones in his forearm. My sister-in-law is somewhat less than sympathetic, because he owns an armguard, which he wasn't wearing at the time.
I know what it's like to have a coming together with a cricket ball, too, hence the reminiscent part of the post. I'd played cricket from almost as far back as I can remember, in the back garden at home or in the park, but it had always been with a tennis ball. The first time I ever played in a game with a proper cricket ball, in my first summer term games lesson when I was 12, I was smacked in the head while keeping wicket - it was a thoroughly inept piece of cricket all round, the bowler delivered a head-high beamer (a ball that doesn't bounce), which the batsman tried to swat away, but only succeeded in top-edging, I tried to catch it, but left just enough room between the wicket-keeping gloves I'd so coveted for the ball to go straight between and hit me flush on the forehead. I've still got a discernible lump where the ball hit me, nearly 40 years later! The crowning irony was that I'd volunteered to learn to be a cricket scorer for the various school teams - I wasn't, obviously, a very good player, but was desperate to be involved in some way, so I became a team 'official' instead, something I carried on with right through my school career, eventually spending 3 years as the 1st XI scorer (and playing the odd game, when we were short-handed) - and turned up in the classroom where the volunteers (all two of us!) were due to meet with a huge lump, including the imprint of the seam of the ball, above my left eye!
I don't do it so much these days, due to time pressures, but I can still, on occasions, spend hours watching cricket, mostly on TV, without any guilt at all - impenetrable it might be to some, but it's part of the English psyche, even in these cosmopolitan days.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

6 comments:

  1. Cricket. Something I've actually watched a bit of and didn't understand that bit at all. But of course, I don't understand too many sports beyond a very superficial level. But it does seems rather improbably to get injured playing cricket! It's certainly not American football or ice hockey.

    Cool post, Sammy, thanks!
    Peace <3
    Jay

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  2. Hello Jay
    If you ever get the chance to hold a cricket ball (not likely in your neck of the woods, I know!), and then envisage it coming at you at 70 or 80 MPH, the potential for injury might become a little more obvious!

    Love & best wishes
    Sammy B

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  3. Though I am English through and through I have always found cricket to be Another Country.

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  4. Hello Micky
    'I miss the cricket". I love that film so much!

    Love & best wishes
    Sammy B

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  5. It's the game they play between football seasons in this town. I love the Victorian Gentleman aspect of it. Any day's activity that doesn't start until 11 and takes time off for afternoon tea (as well as lunch) sounds good to me. I love the way the game can ebb and flow over 5 days without having to end someone winning.

    That ball hurts. I was a wimp when I batted as a kid and was accused a number of times of making love to the square leg umpire (as I backed away from it). Little did they know how much that would have pleased me.

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  6. Hello Billy
    I don't think my work colleagues believed me when I said the reason the MCG had such a big spectator capacity was for the footy and not the cricket!
    I used to love playing when I was a kid, but I never really loved the ball that much after my early coming together with it, not helped by the fact that my batting was rubbish, even if my off-breaks caused a few people some slight consternation.

    Love & best wishes
    Sammy B

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