Sunday, May 8, 2011

Cricket/Ladybirds - 7/5

The English love their sport.  Boxing, golf, tennis, athletics, formula one - doesn't matter; the press follows it all.  Even snooker.  Snooker, pronounced snewkah, just crowned its world cup winner or whatever you call it.  According to the press,  "John Higgins beat Judd Trump 18-15 in a pulsating final to win the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship for the fourth time."  Pulsating!  How could anything held at The Crucible not be pulsating? 

I'm not here to write about snooker, though,  cricket is on the docket...

After a morning of doing errands and such, I went to the local oval to watch a bit of cricket. I have seen several games on TV - mostly during the Ashes series when we lived in Australia - and I am basically familiar with the rules.  I have really enjoyed watching games on TV and have even seen a couple of games here on telly.  This was to be my first experience at the ground. Turns out Clair Bisaro with whom I share driving duties to school, has a nephew (of sorts) from South Africa who is trying to make it into the big time cricket scene, county cricket.  For now he is playing with the Alderley Edge team which plays at the level just below county.  The Alderley Edge Cricket Club is a bit stuffy and they offer the trifecta of stuffy sports: cricket, tennis and squash (golf is a game not a sport).  Lots of white being worn and signs reminding you if you are not a member you can't use the bar.  I found a way.  When you watch cricket on TV you don't really get an appreciation for the game and now that I have seen the game up close and personal, I have a few observations.

The first thing I noticed was that everyone was really small.  Even tennis guys are bigger.

The second inspired a question.  Why do four guys stand shoulder to shoulder behind the batsman and to his right (if he is right handed).  This while leaving the whole left side of the ground uncovered.  You can kind of see the opening in the photo above.  Aside from one person, there is no one over on the left.  I did ask one person on the ground, but didn't get an answer that computes.  Answer: if the ball goes over there, the bowler didn't give a good ball.  Maybe so, but you think you would want someone over there covering.  You have guys to spare as a couple of them are holding hands behind the batsman.  Since I played baseball, I tried to think of the whole thing in terms of baseball.  It's like telling your pitcher to never pitch the ball on the inside of the plate and then (for a right hander) remove the third baseman, shortstop and left fielder and move them to the right side of the field. 


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While I was at the cricket, Andrea took Rose and Xyla to a birthday party.  They transformed into Ladybugs at the party.  Below is a photo of us mid-way through getting the stuff off of their faces.  From Ladybird to zombie.


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