Saturday, April 25, 2015

Cricket



One of the best aspects of travel is immersing yourself in other cultures. 
Whether it be the arts, food or sport it is all there for you to experience.
With this in mind we decided to go to Grenada's National Stadium
to see our first Cricket match.


I will apologize up front to all our British, Australian, West Indian,
to all our friends who are citizens of a country that is part of the
British Commonwealth for I'm sure to describe something incorrectly
or use an incorrect term when I describe our experience viewing this
sport that you love so well.  One does not understand Cricket in a day.



The match was England vs the West Indies and it was a Test Match
which I am told is the traditional way of playing Cricket. 
Traditional is their way of saying this is going to take 5 days.
We went on day 4 and watched for 5 hours not including the breaks
for lunch and afternoon tea.  That is the players' breaks for lunch
and tea, not ours.  I understand there is also 50/50 and 20/20 Cricket,
shortened versions of the game designed to attract an audience who
wants a faster paced match. 



By the time we left we were beginning to understand a few aspects of
the game but I will confess that I don't know what an "over" is
(it was explained to me but I can't remember what I was told) and how
you can score more than 600 points but lose by "wickets"?


It definitely is a game of endurance.  While we were sitting in the
shade with a wonderful breeze blowing and cold drinks in our hand,
the players were standing in the hot, Caribbean sun for 6 hours. 
The same 2 batters (not sure if that's what they are called)
were batting for 4 of the hours that we were there watching
and they weren't finished as they weren't "out".




The bowler gets the most workout during the match.






After 5 hours and the break for afternoon tea, we decided to call it a day.
The match was completed today with England winning over the
West Indies by 9 Wickets.  I have no clue what this means!


West Indies First Innings       299 all out (104.4 overs)

England First Innings            464 all out (144.1 overs)
West Indies Second Innings  307 all out (112.0 overs)
England Second Innings    144 for 1 (41.1 overs)
I think I prefer a faster paced sport and by faster paced I mean one where  
the game is actually completed after several hours not days. 
But all in all it was a good day.  Jolly good!



1 comment:

  1. If your ancestors hadn't thrown that snit in 1776 you'd probably know this game, but you did well to sit through 5 hours of a test match. Next time go to a 20/20 match. Much more entertaining.
    An over is a set of six balls bowled from one end of the cricket pitch.
    One doesn't accumulate points. One accumulates runs.

    ReplyDelete