Well, I’m something of a cricket fan. Whilst I’ve not picked up a cricket bat in anger in a long, long time, I do enjoy watching it when I can. So what a few weeks we’ve had! It’s been absolutely riveting, and I’ve been finding it hard to do much else without having to check the score every few minutes, or have the radio or TV on in the background.
Of course, the backdrop to this is that I live in Scotland. It’s widely perceived by both Scots and non-Scots that it’s not popular at all. But quite the contrary is true: I learnt when I went to listen to Radio 4’s Today programme during an election outside broadcast that cricket - in terms of participation - is every bit as popular as Rugby. From none other than the Scottish Cricket captain.
And just the other weekend, we were walking across to Pollock House to see what was going on with the “Family Day” they hold every year, and we walked past two (yes, two) cricket matches. One on the proper - manicured and well kept - cricket pitch (complete with screens and club house), and another more informal bash on the football fields. When I say informal, they had cricket whites on, so not that informal.
So the idea that it’s not played in Scotland simply isn’t true. It’s still got a long way to go before it becomes widely popular, but there’s a league out there, and a national cricket team, so I’m sure the current Ashes series will help spur more interest and help shed the image that it’s a dry, boring game.
I rushed home from work on Monday to watch the last ten or so overs, and whilst it was a disappointment England didn’t win from such a dominant position, it was a truly remarkable game, and so soon after the equally enthralling 2nd test in the series where England won by just two runs.
So, here’s looking forward to the next two test matches. And if you’ve never watched or followed Cricket, it’s really not that complicated. Granted, there are a lot of subtle rules and jargon to understand, but you can’t go far wrong with some of these excellent resources:
- Wikipedia’s entry on Cricket
- Channel 4’s cricket pages
- Cricinfo.com - excellent commentary and analysis.
- BBC’s Cricket pages
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August 17th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Apparently there are more cricket clubs in the Scottish Lowlands than there are rugby clubs in the whole of Scotland.
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:17 pm
explanation of cricket: see here
August 25th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Um, so, what exactly is a reverse swing again?
August 28th, 2005 at 12:21 am
Helen:
The ball is released by the bowler and travels in one direction. When the ball hits the ground, it swings back the other way (while of course still moving away from the bowler). So basically it changes direction by 90 degrees or there abouts.
I remember one of the Auzzie players saying something about making a clean-sweap of the series.
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