Never be a sports sulk.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 1:34 am

India has beaten Australia in a five-day Test match. As a consequence, I am just about to put together a baseball pictorial page, rather than a cricket page.

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 2:58 am

Paul, Even when I don't fully understand your posts, I find them fascinating.

gullyj · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 9:44 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by SeaRaven:
Paul, Even when I don't fully understand your posts, I find them fascinating.<hr></blockquote>My commowealth companion is talking about cricket, a game difficult to understand but easy to appreciate by sporting a wide-brimmed hat, guzzling gin-and-tonic and chowing down on strawberries.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 12:14 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Paul Wiggins:
India has beaten Australia in a five-day Test match. As a consequence, I am just about to put together a baseball pictorial page, rather than a cricket page.<hr></blockquote>
I must've missed something. (Irony, perhaps?) How is one a consequence of the other?Aside, I'd gladly give baseball appreciation lessons for tutelage in the basics of cricket.

wordygurdy · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 12:36 pm

I saw the Indian movie *Lagaan* last year in the theater. It's about five hours long (it even has an intermission, which I had never experienced while seeing a movie). It's now on video if anyone cares to rent it.Most of the plot revolves around the outcome of a cricket match, and a good portion of the movie follows the match, play by play.At the end of five hours I was no closer to understanding cricket than I was at the beginning--and I am a die-hard baseball fan.

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 1:26 pm

My wife and I own a home in British Columbia, to which I hope to retire in five years.I am having a difficult time figuring Canada out, Paul, though I am trying. I sat in a few bars out there during the Winter Olympics and pretended to understanding curling. The fact that Kelly Law is kinda cute did make it sort of bearable. That and the beer.Paul, I think Australia will be more of a challenge for me to understand. I agree with a prior poster in that I sometimes am kerfuffled by your missives, but thoroughly enjoy them nonetheless.The only thing I know about cricket is that one of the stars is\was Nick Trainor, which happens to be my stepfather's and half-brother's name.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 2:14 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bumfketeer:
The only thing I know about cricket is that one of the stars is\was Nick Trainor, which happens to be my stepfather's and half-brother's name.<hr></blockquote>Eerie.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:16 pm

The post was a confession that victories get more coverage than losses, which I am not sure is a good or a bad thing.* What's difficult to understand about a game that can go for five days and that more often in not ends in a draw?You have two sides, one in the field and one in.
Each man that is in the side that is in goes out and when he is out he comes in and the next man goes out.
When they are all out, the side that has been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs, that is the end of the game.
HOWZAT! (Acknowledgements to the MCC)

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:22 pm

Thanks, Paul. The explanation was well worth the wait, as expected.

wordygurdy · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:25 pm

I'm with Sea Raven on that one!Does that explanation come with a secret decoder ring?!

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:45 pm

I've been watching cricket for many decades and still learn something new each time. It's a fine metaphor for life.
A colleague of mine from Arizona once went to Lord's in England (the spiritual home of cricket) and went to the Long Room (the inner sanctum, as it were) to watch England play Australia.
"Wiggins,'' says Berryman, ''the members were reading about the match in the newspaper, rather than watching it.''
''Berryman,'' says Wiggins, ''that's the point.''

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:55 pm

Until this moment, I never had much desire to watch a cricket match. Now it's on the must-do-before-I-die list.[ December 17, 2003: Message edited by: SeaRaven ]

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 9:27 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Paul Wiggins:
You have two sides, one in the field and one in.
Each man that is in the side that is in goes out and when he is out he comes in and the next man goes out.
When they are all out, the side that has been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs, that is the end of the game.<hr></blockquote>
John Cleese couldn't have explained it better. Bravo!(I'll be laughing about that one for days.)

RimRat · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 9:36 pm

A comedian (Mike Macdonald, I think) once said that televised cricket is the only thing that would get a heroin addict off the couch to change the channel.He got a big laugh for it -- I guess that's the general view -- but I watched part of a match at Eton about 20 years ago whilst messing around in the UK for a bit. I found it strangely, langorously, elegant. Seemed a perfect sport for the kind of (for England) sultry day on which it was played.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:06 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by RimRat:
I found it strangely, langorously, elegant. .<hr></blockquote>By George, I think he's got it!
The qualities you describe are those I have seen in the best copy editors it has been my privilege to work with.
I, on the other hand, am strangely, hyperactively, inelegant.
Such is life.

RimRat · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:48 pm

I, on the other hand, am strangely, hyperactively, inelegant.My langour, on the other hand, is often mistaken for sleep.Your recital of the salient points of cricket has helped me understand, in retrospect, whatinhell I was watching. Once I stopped chortling, that is.

majorbabs · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2003 5:01 pm

Help me out here, Wiggins. My English friend says that cricket is a sport played by gentlemen for ruffians and rugby is a sport played by ruffians for gentlemen. Is he right?

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2003 6:05 pm

Almost correct but as I recall it ... Rugby: a game for thugs played by gentlemen; football (soccer): a game for gentlemen played by thugs .

vtuss · **Posted:** Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:28 am

You want to read another language that only look like English? Take a look at cricket stories. Bloomberg often moves some, if your paper subscribes to that wire.

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Fri Dec 19, 2003 1:49 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Paul Wiggins:
football (soccer): a game for gentlemen played by thugs .<hr></blockquote>Perhaps the American TV news media have been giving a skewed perspective (as usual), but the only times I ever see soccer fans are when they are ripping out one another's vital organs and burning down the stadium.

AMac · **Posted:** Sun Dec 28, 2003 10:52 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bumfketeer:
My wife and I own a home in British Columbia, to which I hope to retire in five years.I am having a difficult time figuring Canada out, Paul, though I am trying. I sat in a few bars out there during the Winter Olympics and pretended to understanding curling. The fact that Kelly Law is kinda cute did make it sort of bearable. That and the beer.
.<hr></blockquote>The secret to curling is in our beer.

KfitzR · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 3:47 pm

You can probably survive nicely in BC without a complete command of curling. However, in Saskatchewan it is mandatory.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:03 pm

A postscript.
After 20 playing days aforementioned Test series is over - tied at one game for India and one game for Australia with two draws - its fate in the balance until the final few minutes of scheduled play. For a lack of media diversity (and crocodiles) enlarge thumbnails at The Daily Terror and The esteemed Illawarra Mercury.[ January 06, 2004: Message edited by: Paul Wiggins ]

ramblerdan · **Posted:** Fri Jan 09, 2004 12:53 pm

The only thing I find as incomprehensible as Cricket coverage is Bridge reports (helpfully reproduced in this forum from time to time). It always make me think of a hilarious scene in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Inspector Hound": Cynthia: Right! Who starts?
Magnus: I do. I'll dummy for a no-bid ruff and double my holding on South's queen.
Felicity: Pay twenty-ones or trump my contract. Cynthia's turn.
Cynthia: I'll trump your contract with five dummy no-trumps there and I'll move West's rook for the re-bid with a banker ruff on his second trick there. Simon?
Birdboot: Would you mind doing that again?
Cynthia: And I'll ruff your dummy with five no-bid trumps there, and I support your re-bid with a banker for the solo ruff in the dummy trick there.
Birdboot: And I call your bluff!
Cynthia: Well done, Simon!
Cynthia: Right Simon, it's your opening on the minor bid. Hmm. Let's see. I think I'll overbid the spade convention with two no-trumps and King's gambit offered there--and West's dummy split double to Queen's
Bishop 4 there!
Magnus: Faites vos jeux. Rien ne va plus. Rouge et noir. ZÃ©ro.
Cynthia: Simon?
Birdboot: And I call your bluff!
Cynthia: I meld.
Felicity: I huff.
Magnus: I ruff.
Birdboot: I bluff.
Cynthia: Twist.
Felicity: Bust.
Magnus: Check.
Birdboot: Snap.
Cynthia: How's that?
Felicity: Not out.
Magnus: Double top.
Birdboot: Bingo!--Rambler Dan
(5 below zero at noon, thank you very much)

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Fri Jan 09, 2004 2:22 pm

Good lord, that is hilarious! This Stoppard chap -- he was the Seventh Python perchance?

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