It's not cricket!

Or is it cricket?

There is wailing and gnashing of teeth. This is all because there was apparently a "Test Match"  which, shock and horror, began on a Wednesday and was over on a Friday. There was no weekend cricket and thus no " weekend hospitality " or chance to go to the cricket on a Saturday or Sunday. People in the industry are complaining about losing a lot of money, cricket tragics are up in arms. There is fury at the governing body.

Hmmm...I am waiting for a phone call from Cousin M.... He is the true blue sports fan of the clan. For years he would, completely out of the blue, call the Senior Cat and say, "What's the score?" The Senior Cat would say, "For what?" Cousin M... would say, "The cricket" or, in winter, "the footy". The Senior Cat never had any idea. He was not in the least bit interested. Cousin M... once took the Senior Cat to a football match but it was a bit of a disaster. The Senior Cat took all the teasing as it was intended, a bit of good fun.

But, they never went to a cricket match together. Cricket was and is too important in the eyes of Cousin M...  If cricket was a religion it would be the highest of high church, the most sacred rites of all. "The footy" is important, very important but it is low church compared with cricket in the eyes of Cousin M....  We would be told about "balls", "overs", "wickets" and "runs" in all their glorious detail. Cousin M... even had the audacity to once try and show me how to hold a cricket bat. 

I know almost nothing about cricket but I know more about it than I know about any other game apart from softball. Softball I was forced to know something about - and I have forgotten almost everything I once had to learn - but cricket is different. I have actually played cricket - at least, I have played a form of cricket.

I remember those wonderful occasions back in the dark ages of my teens when I would spend ten days in the summer at what was then horrendously called "The Crippled Children's Camp". I would go as a Guide along with fifty-nine other Guides (all in their teens) and there would be sixty children and a half dozen or so adults.  We camped and we did all sorts of things like ride the police horses and go to the farm.

But the highlight of the week was the Ashes Match against whichever team Sir Donald Bradman had managed to snag for the day. The team would come up to the campsite in the hills. They would show some of the more able children how to hold a bat or bowl a ball. They would have lunch among the children. Then, in the afternoon, there would be "the match". 

"You're bowling for ...." I would be told by the adult half of the captaincy. That was considered completely fair because some of the children could not even hold a ball and my ability to throw a ball straight was (and is) not exactly up to test standard. We would "play cricket" on the rough pitch in the hot summer sun. There would be runs made and people would be "in" and "out". At the end of it the tin cup (with "the Ashes" printed on Dymo tape and stuck to one side) would be solemnly presented to the child half of the captaincy and then there would be "proper afternoon tea".

And yes, my one achievement in the field of sport was made on that cricket pitch. I have spoken of it elsewhere. There is no need to repeat the story. What is important is that this was cricket, real cricket. This was a game, a real game...and the memories have lasted a lifetime for all of us involved. 

Cousin M... does not understand this...and neither do all those "fans" bewailing the lack of weekend cricket.