Before I came to Australia, I’ve never wanted to punt a joey, chug Vegemite, or jump naked into a pool of hammerheads.
Then again, before I came to Australia I’d never watched cricket, either.
But after a cricket-filled afternoon last weekend, I’m sure I’d do anything to avoid watching it again, including taking home a pet funnel-web spider. Because, my friends, the rumors are true — cricket is really that mind-numbingly, tear-jerkingly, face-cringingly boring.
And trust me, I know boring sports. I got plenty of flak in high school for being a baseball fan. "After all," they would say, “isn’t baseball just a dreary ol’ ‘pastime,’ brimming with fatsos and unathletic dimwits? Can any game where Marshmallow Man-ny Ramirez thrives really be considered a ‘sport?’ ”
Since I wasn’t on the debate team, my responses generally utilized the phrase “your mom” (and if you’ve met me, you know that still rings true). But if I had better prepared my insult-ability, I would have simply carried the rulebook for the “sport” of cricket, doling it out to those who considered baseball tedious and tiresome.
Actually, on second thought, I probably would have brought someone who knows the rules, because to a layman like myself, cricket is about as understandable as a drunk Nigerian discussing quantum physics.
Through some TV marathons, however, I’ve pieced together a couple things about cricket, but you’ll have to bear with me. It looks like a batter, wielding a spanking paddle and a fencer’s helmet, takes a swing at a speeding, bounding ball, which is thrown by the pitcher. Actually, thrown isn’t the right term; “windmilled” is more like it. These pitchers, affectionately called “bowlers,” look like they belong in a ballet troupe as they contort their bodies into all kinds of artistic, unnatural poses.
So this batter, standing in front of some broken sticks, spanks the ball, sending it anywhere on the field — in front, behind, it doesn’t really matter — and runs about twenty feet away to some more broken sticks. The teams rinse, lather and repeat for days on end, until for some reason they switch sides. Once the squads have had enough naptimes, they count their “overs,” “runs,” and, I’m assuming, gallons of tea consumed, to determine which side came out on top.
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Article comments
1 - LOL
Another American who just came out of the well talks about Cricket in a negative way. In an era of globalization and internet, this guy has never seen Cricket. What a joke!!!! What is new mate? same old stuff. Yeah right...take a break and see T20 Cricket. After seeing T20 Cricket, you will never watch baseball in your life
2 - Christopher Rose
The author is probably too distracted by the girls games of Rounders (aka Baseball) or Netball (aka Basketball) or the shoulder padded wussiness that is the watered down version of Rugby they play in the USA to understand what he saw.
Sure, there can be the occasional bad match, which is true for all games, but all this Seppo has done is display his own provincial ignorance. Life is not more fun in America...
3 - Casey
Boys, boys, come now, can't we act civilized? "LOL," you are mistaken when you say I've never "seen Cricket" - of course I have! However, I've never watched cricket (read: sat down in the stands or on a couch, preferably with a beer in hand, and ingratiated myself in the game). Also, T20 cricket, or Twenty20 as it's more popularly called, is only for people who don't have the patience or passion required of true cricket fans. Are you saying you'd rather watch a watered-down, battered, and all-around devolved form of one of the greatest games in the world?
And Chris Rose (you don't host The Best Damn Sports Show Period do you?), please use possessive apostrophes when describing "girls games." That being said, are you implying sexism? Or are you confusedly calling games created by Canadians - as baseball has no lone "creator" - games for girls?
As for a gridiron, there's a reason pads are mandated by league offices - have you ever seen the size and breadth of these players? Not only would LaDanian Tomlinson run roughshod over a rugby pitch, but just imagine what kind of pain DeMarcus Ware could inflict. Merely thinking about that makes me cringe.
By the way, if you're going to insult me (and what happened to the "personal attacks are not allowed" policy?) call me Sepdawg, please.
4 - Christopher Rose
Casey, as you have slagged off a great game based on practically zero evidence and surely absolutely zero thought or insight, maybe you're the one that needs to act civilised.
I don't agree with you on Twenty20, it is fast paced and demands so much skill and commitment from all the players, batsmen, bowlers and fielders.
At the other extreme, a five day international test match can be anything between an exercise in frustration or a totally absorbing experience full of drama, doubt and tension. There is absolutely nothing like it.
I thought the reason American Rugby players wear padding is cos they're a big bunch of softies that can't actually take much physical impact - or is it an attempt to distract us all from the painfully weak stop/start nature of the game? Either way, Gridiron is nothing when compared to Rugby Union.
Describing Basketball and Baseball as games for girls is just a bit of fun really, although they are both clearly derived from the relevant English games I mentioned, which are played by girls.
I've no idea what "Sepdawg" means or even how to pronounce it. However Seppo is English rhyming slang and not strictly speaking an insult. As I'm the Comments Editor here, I'm pretty confident about where and when to draw the line...
5 - Casey
Chris,
You're actually right. In reality, I haven't given cricket it's fair due - I actually think I would be a big fan (but don't tell anyone!), and my English friend back home has promised to teach me the rules when I get home. Sometimes I just like to dabble in a bit of devil's advocacy, which is more or less the column you see here.
And didn't know you meant American Rugby - I don't really know that much about the deviation, so I won't presume anything. I actually thought you were talking gridiron (which I still think is comparable).
As for the Seppo thing, a couple guys called us Sepdawgs while buying beer. And then they recommended we buy Toohey's Extra Dry, so I can't fault them.
On a side note, I finally got to see an Aussie Rules Football game last week - and absolutely loved it.
6 - Christopher Rose
Well, if you're going to go and be all reasonable... lol.
I was being a tad sarcastic when I wrote "American Rugby", I was of course referring to gridiron. I just get a tad peeved when it is referred to as football, which it absolutely isn't.
As to the civilising aspect of cricket, there may be hope for you yet. I did a Google search on "USA Cricket" and it does actually have quite a presence in the USA. There is even a USA Cricket Association. Howzat!
7 - Mark Saleski
...where Marshmallow Man-ny Ramirez...
you've got to be kidding. those are big uniforms. seriously, check it out.
still, i've never had a chance to see any cricket, but given my ability to watch golf on tv, i sort of bet i might like it.
8 - Dr Dreadful
Something which may interest both American detractors and Commonwealth defenders of cricket:
Question: What is the oldest international sporting event in the world?
Answer here.
Surprised?
9 - Dave
what cricket are you watching in September??????.......Australia v Bangladesh...........it’s the off season that’s why that is on....do yourself a favour....watch cricket when the proper games are on.
Seriously….you are in Australia you should know that…………do some research
There is nothing more boring than basketball and baseball…………. cricket rocks.......
10 - Casey
I had no idea USA-Canada cricket matches went so far back, thanks for the heads up, Dr. D.
I was glad to see Australia trounce Bangladesh today - not only was the contest thoroughly entertaining (save for the lunch break, which consisted of a kid's TV program) but I finally witnessed just how dominant Australia could truly be.
Still, Dave, I would argue that the most boring "sport" gracing our time would be NASCAR, not basketball, baseball, or cricket, although that may be another discussion for another day.
And Mark, saying you have an "ability" to watch golf on TV is truly an understatement. Save for the 2008 US Open, watching televised golf is assuredly a skill shared by few.
11 - Casey
Hey Chris,
One last note about baseball/rounders, which I found today in Bill Bryson's novel Made in America: "Baseball and rounders do have unquestionable similarities -- in both the batter hits a pitched ball and then sprints around a base path -- but the difficulty is that the Oxford English Dictionary can find no description for rounders before 1856, by which time baseball as both a sport and a name was firmly established in American life" (328). I guess I'd always thought baseball came from rounders, not (possibly) vice versa.
12 - Christopher Rose
The historic record is actually pretty vague about this, although the Wikipedia entry for Rounders notes "Although rounders is assumed to be older than baseball, literary mentions of "base-ball" pre-date those of rounders." Damn those literary Yankees!
13 - Surfer
Bloody Yanks. Fair dinkum, I wish they'd all piss off home ... on one way tickets, never again to darken the doorstep of this civilised nation.
Only philistines don't like cricket, and that's only because they're too stupid to get their heads around the concept.
Plus, it's not a game for American poofters.
It's a man's game.
14 - Surfer
And Casey, I hope someone cons you into eating a whole spoonful of Vegemite and you choke on it :)
15 - Dr Dreadful
Plus, it's not a game for American poofters.
It's a man's game.
Stan, wasn't it a woman who invented overarm bowling?
As a work-around to stop her hooped skirt from getting in the way?
Still, at least with cricket men and women actually play the same game. With baseball, for no good reason whatsoever that I can fathom, women have to play a completely separate sport called softball.
(The ball is most certainly NOT soft, I can tell you that from first-hand experience...)
16 - Casey
Still haven't tried Vegemite, but I know the day is coming...
As for girls playing baseball, I actually have a story. I attended a small high school with a no-cut policy. I played on the baseball team all four years, and since we didn't have a softball team, five girls ended up joining in one capacity or another (a sixth came on as scorekeeper, but got our coach fired for sleeping with him...that's another story).
Anyway, these girls weren't very good, nor were their minds cut out for the nuances of the game, but they were some of the few who gave it their all. Although one of them got hit in the eye with a fastball - instead of turning away, she stuck her hand out an attempted to catch it - two of the girls played the entire time I was there.
Of course, we didn't get good until my senior year, when they were all gone...but really, who's counting?
17 - STM
Casey, the rule of thumb in regard to Vegemite is: "less is more".
If you manage to put a very thin smear of Vegemite across the wide expanse of your (buttered) toast, you'll be a convert forever.
But if you put too much on, you'll be running around histrionically holding your throat and screaming: "Aaargh ... pass me the orange juice - fu.king quick!"
There's a very thin line between pleasure and pain, love and hate, etc. In this case, that's literally.
BTW, Vegemite is widely used in Australia for an old boarding-school prank, thanks largely to its dark-brown colour. You get the stuff and smear it around the dry part of the toilet bowl (best use rubber gloves for this, kiddies!).
That way, you and your close friends get to use your very own toilet for the whole day, because everyone else walks in, takes one look, and leaves immediately in search of a cleaner bowl that isn't covered in faux sh.t. I believe a better prank is to do them all, so no one who's not in the know can't go at all without embarking on a clean-up :)
It's very versatile stuff, is Vegemite :)