Cricket, sport

Cricket, village idiot and the real thing

This was the text exchange with AD this morning:

AD: Met Phil he said u got some runs

ME: yeah, 20, all in singles. Knee's giving me gyp + knackered

AD: don't try to nick my king of the boring bats crown

ME: t'wasn't excitin', not exactly calypso!

AD: I heard, more like collaps-o

We didn't do very well with the bat on Saturday. I seldom ever do what I'm told to. It's like a sort of default setting. React with mild to extreme rebellion (my default braincells tells me, so they do) and whatever you do, don't do what you're told. The vice captain, acting as umpire, told me I had to stick around for us to have a chance. For some reason I did what I was told and scored agonisingly slowly, while the wickets went down at the other end in any case. In the end Mario got me, again. So called because he has a thick black 'tache (he may be a plumber, he may even embark on weird adventures and do things on hidden levels, and do cart-racing, for all I know) he's got me on too many occasions now, and I need to shape up before it becomes too much of a habit. One of the great things about cricket, though. There's bowlers that must think: 'Jesus, not this mush again. No matter what I do he gets away with it against me' just as I'm thinking 'no, no, stick with the quick bloke with all the variations, just don't give Mario a bowl'.

We (England) won the first test against the Windies. That's good. Also good things are that they gave it a fair go with both bat and ball and made us work for the victory, so the next match at Nottingham should be interesting. These are two sides that are easy to like. Few sporting people have never overstepped the mark. Ever. Just thought: that's probably one of the sport / non-sport types communication brick walls. The non-sports don't understand how we can be so horizontally laid back (“I've got a better car / earn more / private schools / second home(s) / bore / drone / losing the will...) then suddenly spark into aggressive, passionate, and, if necessary, violent life. Sadly, while sport's fashionable they try and fail to come along for the ride. Both teams have spiky characters and both will do (almost) anything to win, but there's both respect and some very humorous characters in both changing rooms. Note to the non-sporting types. Give-away. Call a changing room a dressing room and we call you very bad name, which you deserve. For pretending.

Look guys, I know this hurts, but you know Jack, so just get back to your world (and leave us alone). Please. Or else.