Cricket, not the insect, the game

Remember when you were younger sitting in math class chewing on the end of your eraser watching the slow moving clock tic while swimming around in your head about all the practical jokes you’re going to play on your friends?

Well, you can have this feeling again if you go to a cricket match. OR you can do what I did and people watch, learn enough about the game, listen to people call cops WANKA’s, talk to girls from Sydney and read the newspaper. You have three options for match lengths: 3 hours, 9 hours or 5 days.  I went to the 9 hour match and quickly checked cricket off of my bucket list.

I’m partially joking, but only partially. Here is the thing. Cricket is like baseball but slower. It is a game that is introduced to little vegimites at a young age, played at BBQ’s and covered widely on the news. It is played at a similar open aired stadium and the seats sell out fairly quickly. One big difference: there is only one kind of beer sold at a cricket match: XXXX. I have learned that this is not called quadruple X (as I have been and still do call it) and instead is just called 4X. This beer is considered “Queensland finest, but it’s really not that good” says Craig, not Greg (my flatmate). It’s comparable to LoneStar (headache included). It is the only beer sold because it is the lightest of the beers and on cricket game days you are only allowed to do one thing: drink beer.

So, you want to know a little bit about cricket, do you? Well, according to Wikipedia, kids who lived in a dense woodland area in southeast England in the 16th century created and introduced cricket into the world.  Adults got a hold of it and made a ton of rules and it turned into a real game with umpires and score boards, unlike hide and seek, hop scotch or spin the bottle. It is now played in most of the Commonwealth nations, but don’t feel left out as an American. Cricket did spend some time in the states during the Civil War, but quickly declined in popularity.  According to my friend, Stuart, who invited me to this wonder of a game, the cricket match that I attended was Ricky Ponting’s last ever one-day game for Australia. Apparently this is a piece of history because he is considered one of the greatest. Take a looksies. http://www.triplem.com.au/brisbane/sport/other-sports/news/blog/ricky-ponting-retires-from-one-day-international-cricket/20120221-fnw7.html

I learned that a “snake” is something that has been banned in the cricket stadium. A snake is created when people stack their empty plastic beer cups. Rows of sections would get together and stack ALL of their beer cups and throw then down on the lower level. This is banned because 1. It’s gross and 2. It is considered “dangerous”.

This is the "snake" made by the gentleman in front of me. He drank 27 beers independently. If the rows are 20 twenty seats and each person drinks 27 beers than snake would be 540 cups long. This is just the start. 

Australian’s bring blow up beach balls to the games and have the fans bop them around during the game. When a ball goes over the wall and into the way outfield the cops pick them up and pop them. The whole crowd yells out “WANKA” in unison.  Also, it is good sportsmanship practice to yell out “YOU FUCKED UP. YOU FUCKED UP” in unison when someone acts a fool enough to get kicked out of the stadium. Good ol’ Australians.

This is a copper taking away a snake from a fan. All you can hear is "WANKA. WANKA"

Apparently a few years ago it was a standard practice for people to throw beer, food, and whatever was in their hands in the air when the wave hit their section. Can you imagine? The wave comes around the stadium and when it hits your section people throw chicken, nachos, beer, coke, water, newspaper, etc up in the air only to have it land back on your face, hair and clothes.

Mexican Wave = the wave (apparently it’s NOT racist)

Wicket: out

Score: Run

Bat: bat (shocker)

Bowl: throw

If you hit a home run it equals 6 points/runs.

If you hit the ball against the fence it equals 4 runs.

The bowler (pitcher) stands at a base that is 22 yards or 66 feet away from the batsman. The bowler throws a ball that has to bounce at least once to be good. The batsman hits and then him and his “mate” (i.e. team mate) run back and forth on this 22 yard strip. There are no gloves in the outfield and a lot of the guys wear fishing hats not baseball hats.

The game was good. The crowd was funny. The colors are yellow and green. The experience was worth it. I recommend a 3 hour game and drinks before hand.

Rugby League started last night: stay tunned.