A sporting day

On Friday afternoon, Emma dropped me off after work to meet up with Ellie, a few of her colleagues and some of their families. They has already been at the venue for 2 hours when I arrived. Six and a bit hours later, we were finally leaving. Now, I love sport. There are very few games that I don't enjoy watching and even some of those that many argue are boring, you will find my TV tuned in to watch over the weekend (I will say that watching golf and roundy-rounds is entirely a product of being my father's daughter). But, I finally found a sport that is actually just too slow for me to be able to watch. Eight hours is just too long. Cricket is not my thing. Being from a former British colony, you would think one would have been exposed to cricket at some point, but I think Canada made a good choice leaving cricket behind in our colonial past (we can have a debate about the role of the Queen later, but I think this was a good choice - be gone cricket!). When I arrived at Kingsmead Stadium, I ran into Amy (who works at LHR with Ellie) and Paul (Amy's significant other). They had been at the game for two hours and were searching for sustenance (food and beer). I was told where everybody was seated and went to find Ellie, Sherylle (from LHR) and Sherylle's family, including her two little boys. South Africa was batting, Australia was bowling. I had done my homework and read the Wikipedia entry on cricket. We were attending an ODI (one-day international). Each team had won one of the previous ODIs here in South Africa and so the series came down to the match in Durban. I had learned that an ODI consists of 50 overs for each team. An over is made up of 6 bowls. So, calculating that means that, theoretically, the bowling team will have to throw 300 times towards the wickets in an attempt to hold the batting team to a limited number of runs. When I arrived at the field, I saw that we were 24 overs into South Africa's turn batting. They had made 115 runs. Sherylle told me this was not very good. I had also missed the really exciting part when the group almost got hit by a ball that had been hit for a six (you get six runs if you hit the ball directly out of the field of play, four if it hits inside of the field of play and subsequently rolls or bounces out). So, I was giving this game a chance to wow me; to understand why so many people seem to think it is such a great game. Six hours after I arrived, I understood the general rules and what to watch for that would make the crowd cheer, but I still fail to understand the love of the game and have decided that my impatient, North-American self will not be able to love such a game, no matter how much beer is consumed (which I have garnered, at least in South Africa, is a key to the love of the game - can't figure out how this works in Bangladesh). So, the other things (other than beer) which seem to be the exciting part of the game...the wigs and the flags (they were giving out South African flags apparently if you arrived early).When a batter from the home team hits for a four (special dance where arms are at shoulder height in front of you, and you kinda do a jazz-hands wiggle) or a six (another special dance where arms are above the head, similar hand motion to a four). Also exciting when a single, specific bar of music plays and everyone yells Ole! (and yes, I am in South Africa). It took me a bit to catch onto this one. A single bar of music was not sufficient notice for me. Another homage to the Latin influence, the Mexican wave (I still do not understand the reference to Mexico) - however, the wave here didn't go so well nine out of ten attempts, but when it did...excitement! Exciting that the referees appeared to be attempting to look like members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in dress uniform (good observation Ellie). Also exciting when one of the players in the field, if they happened to be standing near our little area, would take a little break from paying attention to the game to sign autographs for kids (and some not so kid-sized kids). The kids would yell and and then offer a sharpie and a little cricket bat (or whatever they chose was important to have autographed, which included a variety of things from a notebook to a cup). If the players did not oblige, they were booed by both the children and the adults in the area. I will give a special shout out to Johnson from Australia. He seemed to be able to sign many autographs, pay attention to what was going on on the field, and to top it off, he was quite good looking. Cummins (one of the Australian youngins) didn't do so well with the crowd and got booed. I must say, that although he did not sign autographs, he got points with me for being cute. The South Africa, Morkel, he was the worst: did not sign autographs and was not particularly cute. When this was all going on it made me think, what would North American baseball players do if, while playing outfield, they were bombarded with children yelling for autographs all while play was going on. Or hockey goalies, play is at the other end of the rink, could you sign this stick for me? I feel like they would take the Morkel approach. After another 26 overs, South Africa had scored, what was pointed out to be, a paltry 222 runs. Again, 222 runs seems like a great score to me; not so in cricket. So, Ellie and I went to get staples - beer and food. I stopped myself from getting the mini-donuts, as here they are not only the little deep-fried goodness that I love at the Stampede, they are also then smothered in chocolate and sprinkles. I decided I was not up for running those off. Ok, Australia is now batting; South Africa is bowling. We were 4 hours into the game and, at least theoretically only halfway through. Australia had to make 223 runs from 300 bowls in order to win the series. They wasted no time in starting, scoring a number of fours and sixes (none came in our direction, lacking excitement). The second half seemed to go on for a really long time, I guess that may have had something to do with the fact that I had only sat through half of the first half. Ellie and I tried to entertain ourselves. Sherylle commented that she had told us to bring a book. Sherylle's sons shared their mini-donuts with me (something about having them shared with you, rather than purchasing a whole 'serving' for yourself makes it a little more justified). They were yummy. People around us become more obviously drunk, making some much more amusing, others much more annoying. The Mexican wave failed at every attempt. Morkel continued to refuse to sign autographs. The Oles! did continue, but that was really the only excitement (and I eventually caught on). On top of that, South Africa was not doing well at all. The only hope would be to win on wickets. Although they were giving up a lot of runs, they were doing quite well on wickets (this is where the batter fails to protect the wickets and the bowler successfully gets the ball past the batter to knock one of the wickets or when a batter hits the ball in the air and it is caught by one of the fielding team's members before hitting the ground). In fact, South Africa was doing well enough on wickets to get down to the bowlers in the Australian batting order (each team gets to decide their batting order, you put your best batters first, leaving the better skilled bowlers (who tend not to be such great batters, to the end of the rotation). On a side note - the cricket score board, most complicated score board ever. But it was all for not, with Australia taking the match with 3 wickets and 15 balls remaining (they reached 223 and South Africa still had 15 balls to bowl). Eight and a bit hours after the game started, the fans left the stadium in a reasonably orderly fashion. And that was the end. No enraged calls saying that the refs had made the wrong calls. No arguments saying that the Australian team had played dirty. Nothing. Even when we passed a few Australian fans, they just seemed moderately satisfied. So, that is my story of the cricket. I can now say that I have been to a match. I understand the rules (even leg byes and leg before wickets). I understand how a game can last for five days and still end up in a tie (I understand, I do not condone). I understand the different roles the players have (bowlers and batters and bears oh my!). What I still don't understand is the love of the game. It is lost on me. But, to each their own. With my short attention span, I think I will stick to games that move a bit quicker. And on that note - Go Sens Go!!!!!! And a final note - just remember, no pitch invasions.