Just Cricket
"It's just not cricket"! A phrase undoubtedly muttered by the Aussies after enduring a humiliating defeat against England in the Ashes series last month. If you're curious as to the phrase's origins, it's easily explained. It means "having something just plain wrong done to someone or something" and comes from the game of cricket which is regarded as a gentleman's game where fairplay is paramount.
My feelings precisely.
I remember all too well, my days as an eager to please girlfriend of a participant on the local seaside cricket team. I'd have to spend many a gorgeous summer afternoon (yes, slight exaggeration there, because if you're familiar with the British summers you know perfectly well that "gorgeous summer afternoons" are few and far between) either sweltering, or freezing to death, in the "cricket tea pavilion"; a posh way of describing a small, wooden, World War One army hut, with no air conditioning, heating system, electrical outlets, or running water.
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Cricket.
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But there I'd stand, slaving over a hot tea kettle, filled with water from the nearest public loo, and boiled up time and time again on a propane gas stove, while I prepared cucumber sandwiches for twenty two players, umpteen substitutes, and a small army of cricket officials. For a game where "fairplay" is supposedly "paramount", one has to question the need for an umpire at all, let alone two or three (in the case of Test matches), plus two scorers, and a referee. But that is the joy of cricket – it stimulates the intellect by leaving you with more questions than answers.
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Cricket.
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Why for instance does my father – a Yorkshire man whose adoration of Geoff Boycott is only surpassed by his love of Treacle Tart – watch cricket on television with the sound turned down? He listens to the live radio commentary. Now, I'm sure the commentator does a fine job, but you'd think with the price of television licenses being what they are ($250) the BBC could hire a television commentator up to the standard of the man my dad's been listening to for the last fifty years.
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The Plantsmen Cricket Team, Frinton-on-Sea, Essex.
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And just how long is a "game" of cricket? It seems to go on for days, weeks even, and even then there's often no result. How can you play a game for two weeks solid, all day long and not produce a winning team? It's just not cricket! You'd think with all those umpires, referees and score keepers around, at least one of them would come up with the idea of tossing a coin to decide the winner? I wouldn't bank on it though, especially as they can't even decide on the size or shape of field to play on. The Laws of Cricket – of which they are 42 – somehow omitted to specify this little, iddy, biddy detail – sometimes the field is oval, sometimes it isn't. Simple as that.
If only the same could be said for the rest of the game. With its "ins", "outs", "overs", "stumps", "wickets" and "LBWs", I think Rosetta Stone is missing out on a major market by not including Cricket lingo in their foreign language offerings. Some of the terms though quite make one blush – what for instance is an "Away Swinger", a "Baggy Green, a "Batman's Paradise" or a "Bump Ball"? Heaven forbid if you're "caught behind" the "crease" with a "sticky wicket"?! The mind boggles!
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The Ashes.
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As to the aforementioned "Ashes"? Would you believe me if I told you they were the ashes of a burnt ball from the 1882 Australia v England Test Series, which since then have resided in a small wooden urn? Sounds like something only J.K. Rowling would dream up. Or maybe the focus of National Treasure Three? The Ashes – as the singed ball is now so lovingly referred - is a prize trophy contested every two years (not one year, like in tennis, soccer, baseball, or football, not even four like the Olympics, or the World Cup, but in typical Cricketeering tradition, where being different is celebrated; two years) in a series played between Australia and England. At least they have the grace not to call it the "World" Series.
Yes, life within the world of Cricket seems to take on an "Alice in Wonderlandesque" quality. It gets "curiouser and curiouser" when you look at the players on the field in their long white, starched linen pants, crisp white shirts and thick Aran knit sweaters and realize this is the National Game of countries such as India, Argentina, Barbados, Jamaica and Bermuda, where the temperature rarely drops below 120 degrees Fahrenheit. And the players are running! Albeit not very fast, and not very far, but that's only because they're weighed down by big, huge, thick, heavy, foot to thigh "knee pads". If they would just ditch the hefty ridiculous looking full body, ooops, sorry..."knee" protectors, maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to run a little faster, resulting in them being too tired to play for weeks on end and we could all get on with our knitting. But then, of course, that just wouldn't be, er, cricket!
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