h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To the average American sports fan, cricket must seem like sitting around watching paint dry or listening to the grass in your back yard grow. This is thoroughly understandable in a nation in which all popular games generally get a result inside 2 hours. (I well remember the expression of pure horror that crept onto an American friend's face when I took him to a soccer game in Australia and walked away 2 hours later with a 1-0 result. The same friend flatly refused to believe that _any_ sport could involve a game that takes 5 days to play. )

I have to say, though - having lived in the USA for a number of years - that there is more than a touch of irony to the assertion that cricket is slow and American games are fast. When I lived in California I went to (and enjoyed) several baseball and gridiron games (the latter without understanding it in the least), and I will swear to my dying breath that both games have as much of the same stop-start-stop-start rhythm as cricket does. Okay, the American games _usually_ get a result and they are always over in a couple of hours, but don't let anyone tell you that they move faster than cricket. In its most exciting one-day form, with the batsmen in the 2nd innings throwing the willow at everything coming down the pitch, cricket is a heartstopping, fingernail-biting rollercoaster ride. A 1-day final at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) with 110,000 screaming spectators is about as good as it gets.

Especially when the winner is Australia and the loser is England.

Cricket is played in the USA and there are some healthy leagues around. The Northern California Cricket Association boasts some 16+ teams, the area being full of expats from the Commonwealth countries. There is an entire Caribbean team based up in the north-east bay around El Sobrante. Silicon Valley boasts many Indian players, and there are plenty of Australians, English and South Africans around for good measure. A word of warning, though - groundsmen skilled in the preparation of good cricket pitches are as rare as hens' teeth in the US, therefore playing on turf pitches there is done STRICTLY AT YOUR OWN RISK. I clearly remember facing a medium-pacer who pitched one perfectly before me on the half-volley, begging to be driven through the covers for 4, only to have the ball hit a crack and brush my right ear on its way into low orbit. I am 6'4" in height. Be warned.

I am an Australian, and I think watching cricket is like watching grass grow - especially one day cricket. The thing with cricket, and other sports, is that Australian TV is absolutly lousy with it. On the weekend EVERY free to air TV station has sport on it, ALL DAY. Only the news (which is sometimes filled with sports stories) and a 8.30 movie break the sports marathon, only to be followed with sports wrap-up shows.

What a sad perspective on life you must have. Summer is a time of non-stop cricket. What more could a man ask for than on Boxing Day to know that nothing is open and there is nowhere to go other than to sit in front of the test match.

Gunsynd