Cricket anyone?

I went to see a cricket match on January 5th at Brisbane’s big stadium “The Woolongabba” (an aboriginal word meaning “Really, really boring”). It was a new-fangled kind of cricket called “Twenty-20”. You see, there are two traditional kinds of cricket: the 5-day long “Test” variety that nearly brought the national economy to a standstill in December, and the 1-day long version that is considered by purists to be a little watered-down for their liking.

In any case, the owners of this nice, big, round stadium were at a loss as to what to do with it during the 4 years between Test matches: if even the short games take all day, the stadium can only really be used on weekends (the rest of the time people have to work, right?). So last year, the cricket-stadium-owners across Oz invented Twenty-20 as a super-condensed version of cricket that could be played in a few hours. This is played in the evening, drawing the office crowd that is downtown anyways.

The game has been livened-up with the addition of a half-dozen cheerleaders, and cash prizes for a few fans who participate in the half-time ball-throwing game. I must admit that despite being a brand-new league, the event had an exciting buzz to it. The crowd worked itself into a frenzy (regardless of which team was doing what), doing the “Mexican Wave” and bouncing beach-balls around.

Cricket, originally uploaded by metajeff.

There’s so much plucky spirit in everything that happens on the field that one can only smile at the minor-league feel of it all: It’s cute that the dance team isn’t coordinated, and the fans forgiven for needing many, many, many dozens of balls to hit the cash target, as a childhood of soccer has left them throwing-impaired.

As far as I can tell, the principal of the game is much like baseball: fly balls caught by the outfielders mean the batter is out, and ground balls allow the batter to rack up runs (sometimes without having to actually run). However, the whole hitting of the ball is surrounded by an incredibly bizarre set of rules. Depending on whether the ball hits the bat, or the torso of the batter, or the front leg of the batter (“Leg Before Wicket”), or the left leg of the batter, or misses the batter completely, something different happens. It all looks exactly the same and seems fairly random. Sometimes the ball hits the wicket that the batter is standing directly in front of, and the pins go flying. Then I cheered wildly.

Another highlight was when one of the bowlers ran up to the pitch, arms flailing (as they’re supposed to), and slipped and fell on his butt. It was hilarious, and I had a great time.