“That not beginner’s luck then?”
June 4, 2023 7:16 AM Subscribe
A delightful thread by a serious amateur cricketer who found themself unexpectedly drafted in to make up the numbers in a village cricket match (Twitter).
"I put on 78 with the tail. They’re decent players, we rotate the strike sensibly, & though mr angry and mr sweaty are not bad bowlers, they’re tired and weren’t expecting to need anything in reserve. I’m finally caught, last-man, trying to lift the spinner away for six - but I’ve played well. And the best is to come.
Outside the pavilion, the guest captain is in a state of some excitement. “Can you bowl too? Say you can bowl?”
My smugness knows no bounds at this point. “I’m Indian. Of course I can fucking bowl.”
LOL. Excellent thread.
posted by Wordshore at 8:34 AM on June 4, 2023 [17 favorites]
Outside the pavilion, the guest captain is in a state of some excitement. “Can you bowl too? Say you can bowl?”
My smugness knows no bounds at this point. “I’m Indian. Of course I can fucking bowl.”
LOL. Excellent thread.
posted by Wordshore at 8:34 AM on June 4, 2023 [17 favorites]
Reminds me of this somehow.
Good for them, though. They obviously had a damn fine afternoon.
posted by Naberius at 9:14 AM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Good for them, though. They obviously had a damn fine afternoon.
posted by Naberius at 9:14 AM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
What a great story, thanks for posting it!
posted by Zonker at 10:04 AM on June 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Zonker at 10:04 AM on June 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
The player in question lists they/them rather than she/her pronouns in their twitter bio...
posted by terretu at 10:20 AM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by terretu at 10:20 AM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I love that I know precisely zero about cricked, and I did not know most of the words/terms used in that thread, but I can still totally get the gist of it. (Also, man, cricket seems like such a weird-ass sport.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:35 AM on June 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:35 AM on June 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
This was great fun, thanks tomcooke! I enjoyed the end, too, in which some sanctimonious fart congratulated the person tweeting and then said now she just needed to clean up her foul language, which was responded to appropriately. Fucking A!
posted by Bella Donna at 11:00 AM on June 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 11:00 AM on June 4, 2023 [7 favorites]
The player in question lists they/them rather than she/her pronouns in their twitter bio...
Thank you for pointing this out! Mods can you fix this in the post please?
posted by tomcooke at 11:02 AM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thank you for pointing this out! Mods can you fix this in the post please?
posted by tomcooke at 11:02 AM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I've always lived in the US and don't know a game of cricket from a black pudding but I have an excellent attention span and would like to sit down and watch a hours-long cricket match(?). I have no interest in basesball and need something to do between the NBA and NFL seasons.
posted by neuron at 11:03 AM on June 4, 2023
posted by neuron at 11:03 AM on June 4, 2023
If you're from the US and have difficulty with the terminology and would like a basic primer,
The joy of this thread really comes through despite the terminology that reads like “we ended 78 brumps ahead of the mid floor without flopping a single mollycoddle” to the uninitiated. I will check out the primer directly, thank you.
posted by mhoye at 11:24 AM on June 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
The joy of this thread really comes through despite the terminology that reads like “we ended 78 brumps ahead of the mid floor without flopping a single mollycoddle” to the uninitiated. I will check out the primer directly, thank you.
posted by mhoye at 11:24 AM on June 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
"ChatGPT, write me a few paragraphs of text about some kind of crazypants English space-baseball."
posted by The Tensor at 11:24 AM on June 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by The Tensor at 11:24 AM on June 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
I have no interest in basesball
So you want to watch cricket? I would rate baseball as being the most similar to cricket of all the American sports.
posted by axiom at 11:26 AM on June 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
So you want to watch cricket? I would rate baseball as being the most similar to cricket of all the American sports.
posted by axiom at 11:26 AM on June 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
I would rate baseball as being the most similar to cricket of all the American sports.
Which is precisely why I, who played College Level in India, have a partial season ticket for the local MLB team. And this year's tweaking of the rules has made the pleasure of watching it live immeasurably greater. I saw a game this year that ended in 2 hours!!
And this thread was fantastic! Reminded me of a few of my exploits from my glory days, but I never had a game where I excelled both with the ball and the bat, like this tweeter did. Unfortunately, I was also a good wicketkeeper so my time at the highest level I played was as a WK. So I never got to bowl. :-(
posted by indianbadger1 at 11:33 AM on June 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
Which is precisely why I, who played College Level in India, have a partial season ticket for the local MLB team. And this year's tweaking of the rules has made the pleasure of watching it live immeasurably greater. I saw a game this year that ended in 2 hours!!
And this thread was fantastic! Reminded me of a few of my exploits from my glory days, but I never had a game where I excelled both with the ball and the bat, like this tweeter did. Unfortunately, I was also a good wicketkeeper so my time at the highest level I played was as a WK. So I never got to bowl. :-(
posted by indianbadger1 at 11:33 AM on June 4, 2023 [13 favorites]
The home side weren’t bad with the bat. It took me and a nifty little paceman 8 overs and 32 runs to shift their openers, and it wasn’t me that made the breakthrough. But once it was made, I was making hay like a fucking bailing machine. None of the middle-order duffers could play spin. The pitch was hard and grippy and every ball was coming out beautifully… zipping and turning and making me feel like Warney himself as I took 5-8 through their middle order, before the two paceman cleaned up the tail for a glorious 58-run win.
By happy coincidence, today is the 30th anniversary of Shane "Warney" Warne's first ball in a test match in England (Ashes, Australia vs England, Test Matches last up to five days each). Video of that delivery, and analysis by several top players of why it was so good. There's a piece in the Guardian today about it, which concludes with:
Australia’s former foreign minister Julie Bishop even has a story about her time working as independent observer of the general election in Zimbabwe in 2000, when she was sent into the mountains to interview a gang of war veterans who had taken over a farm. “They were kind of like bikies, tatts and no teeth and chains around their necks.”
Their leader was called the Leopard. “You’re British,” he said with a glare when he met her. Bishop’s heart sank. “No,” she replied, “I’m Australian.” He looked at her, then around everyone else, and said, with a big grin: “Shane Warne.”
posted by Wordshore at 1:11 PM on June 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
By happy coincidence, today is the 30th anniversary of Shane "Warney" Warne's first ball in a test match in England (Ashes, Australia vs England, Test Matches last up to five days each). Video of that delivery, and analysis by several top players of why it was so good. There's a piece in the Guardian today about it, which concludes with:
Australia’s former foreign minister Julie Bishop even has a story about her time working as independent observer of the general election in Zimbabwe in 2000, when she was sent into the mountains to interview a gang of war veterans who had taken over a farm. “They were kind of like bikies, tatts and no teeth and chains around their necks.”
Their leader was called the Leopard. “You’re British,” he said with a glare when he met her. Bishop’s heart sank. “No,” she replied, “I’m Australian.” He looked at her, then around everyone else, and said, with a big grin: “Shane Warne.”
posted by Wordshore at 1:11 PM on June 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
(also, which may add some further context to spin bowling, Warney describing, live, how he will bowl to Brendon McCullum during a 2011 match)
posted by Wordshore at 1:26 PM on June 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Wordshore at 1:26 PM on June 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
And The Duckford Lewis Method performing their song about the event.
posted by Grangousier at 1:35 PM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Grangousier at 1:35 PM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
yeah so I'm even from Germany and I don't understand even a third of what's going on, and I'm still smiling. I just love these kinds of stories.
posted by flamewise at 2:21 PM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by flamewise at 2:21 PM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
My smugness knows no bounds at this point. “I’m Indian. Of course I can fucking bowl.”
I love it.
posted by EllaEm at 2:25 PM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I love it.
posted by EllaEm at 2:25 PM on June 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I actually found cricket easier to understand when I stopped thinking of it as "weird baseball" and more as "combat bowling with showing off."
YOU are trying to knock down the bowling pins. I am standing here in your way with my stick being an asshole about it and not letting you knock down the bowling pins. And to just show you how damn good I am at not knocking down the bowling pins, I'mma gonna whack the fuck out of your bowling ball so that it goes way away, and then spend a bunch of time running around back and forth between the two sets of bowling pins and you get to count just how many times I can run back and forth while you and your friends try to get the ball back in order to get another crack at knocking over the pins.
posted by Xiphias Gladius at 6:45 PM on June 4, 2023 [59 favorites]
YOU are trying to knock down the bowling pins. I am standing here in your way with my stick being an asshole about it and not letting you knock down the bowling pins. And to just show you how damn good I am at not knocking down the bowling pins, I'mma gonna whack the fuck out of your bowling ball so that it goes way away, and then spend a bunch of time running around back and forth between the two sets of bowling pins and you get to count just how many times I can run back and forth while you and your friends try to get the ball back in order to get another crack at knocking over the pins.
posted by Xiphias Gladius at 6:45 PM on June 4, 2023 [59 favorites]
Wasn't there a story in Alice in Wonderland about a game like cricket? Charming fucking story!
posted by a humble nudibranch at 7:52 PM on June 4, 2023
posted by a humble nudibranch at 7:52 PM on June 4, 2023
The Alice in Wonderland game you are thinking of might be croquet?
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:18 PM on June 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:18 PM on June 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Love this, thanks!
posted by freethefeet at 8:21 PM on June 4, 2023
posted by freethefeet at 8:21 PM on June 4, 2023
Well that was delightful.
Count me as another person who had literally no clue what the action described was, but was still following the whole thing move by move as if I did. My smugness knows no bounds at this point. “I’m Indian. Of course I can fucking bowl.” Brilliant.
posted by Mchelly at 8:56 PM on June 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Count me as another person who had literally no clue what the action described was, but was still following the whole thing move by move as if I did. My smugness knows no bounds at this point. “I’m Indian. Of course I can fucking bowl.” Brilliant.
posted by Mchelly at 8:56 PM on June 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
how crap …their tailenders must be if he’s put them in AFTER me.
Imagine the regret if he’d got that wrong.
posted by Phanx at 10:36 PM on June 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Imagine the regret if he’d got that wrong.
posted by Phanx at 10:36 PM on June 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
YOU are trying to knock down the bowling pins. I am standing here in your way with my stick being an asshole about it and not letting you knock down the bowling pins. And to just show you how damn good I am at not knocking down the bowling pins, I'mma gonna whack the fuck out of your bowling ball so that it goes way away, and then spend a bunch of time running around back and forth between the two sets of bowling pins and you get to count just how many times I can run back and forth while you and your friends try to get the ball back in order to get another crack at knocking over the pins.
As a cricket knower, this is basically accurate. I'm not unreasonable, though: we'll say that it counts if when you bowl, it would have hit your bowling pins if my legs weren't in the way, if you agree that when I whack your stupid bowling ball away and you try and get it back, it doesn't count if me or my buddy here is next to the bowling pins. I get that it sounds a bad deal for you, but we're going to be running back and forth making you all look foolish so you all get to make us pay for our hubris. Deal?
posted by Merus at 10:47 PM on June 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
As a cricket knower, this is basically accurate. I'm not unreasonable, though: we'll say that it counts if when you bowl, it would have hit your bowling pins if my legs weren't in the way, if you agree that when I whack your stupid bowling ball away and you try and get it back, it doesn't count if me or my buddy here is next to the bowling pins. I get that it sounds a bad deal for you, but we're going to be running back and forth making you all look foolish so you all get to make us pay for our hubris. Deal?
posted by Merus at 10:47 PM on June 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
My memories from playing cricket at school are:
1) You are standing on a wide field on a hot day. You chat with nearby friends about Warhammer. It's quiet. Suddenly there's lots of shouting and a very hard fast object hurtles down and apparently running away from it covering your head is wrong.
2) You are told to carry a heavy wooden sword and people throw very hard objects directly at you.
3) There's theoretically a bit of running backwards and forwards with someone else also waving a heavy stick but I can't remember doing this
4) You are sometimes given the choice between taking the gray, strange, ancient object the school thug has just *removed from inside his trousers, maybe inside his underpants* or refusing it and risking having your testicles smashed by the other class thug, who is ready to throw things at you.
But later in life I had a flat overlooking a small North-East amateur cricket club and the sound of it is lovely. "traditional sounds of an English summer, [...] the smack of leather on willow" as The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds describes it. Polite clapping. The players and fans are well behaved. It seems to cross over traditional social boundaries. I've still got no interest in doing it, understanding it or watching it but it's nice to have around, like Morris Dancing.
posted by BinaryApe at 12:03 AM on June 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
1) You are standing on a wide field on a hot day. You chat with nearby friends about Warhammer. It's quiet. Suddenly there's lots of shouting and a very hard fast object hurtles down and apparently running away from it covering your head is wrong.
2) You are told to carry a heavy wooden sword and people throw very hard objects directly at you.
3) There's theoretically a bit of running backwards and forwards with someone else also waving a heavy stick but I can't remember doing this
4) You are sometimes given the choice between taking the gray, strange, ancient object the school thug has just *removed from inside his trousers, maybe inside his underpants* or refusing it and risking having your testicles smashed by the other class thug, who is ready to throw things at you.
But later in life I had a flat overlooking a small North-East amateur cricket club and the sound of it is lovely. "traditional sounds of an English summer, [...] the smack of leather on willow" as The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds describes it. Polite clapping. The players and fans are well behaved. It seems to cross over traditional social boundaries. I've still got no interest in doing it, understanding it or watching it but it's nice to have around, like Morris Dancing.
posted by BinaryApe at 12:03 AM on June 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
Well, that was an absolute delight!
posted by TheCoug at 2:06 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by TheCoug at 2:06 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
British Indian here, still know fuck-all about cricket except that
a) it's hard to say to your other half, "bye honey I'm off to the pub with all my mates to drink for twelve hours"
b) but it's easy to say to your other half, "bye honey I'm off to watch the cricket"
(Also, see fishing, book club, etc)
Thoroughly enjoyed the thread, can visualize the entire thing in my mind from start to finish, wonderfully written up.
posted by bookbook at 2:34 AM on June 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
a) it's hard to say to your other half, "bye honey I'm off to the pub with all my mates to drink for twelve hours"
b) but it's easy to say to your other half, "bye honey I'm off to watch the cricket"
(Also, see fishing, book club, etc)
Thoroughly enjoyed the thread, can visualize the entire thing in my mind from start to finish, wonderfully written up.
posted by bookbook at 2:34 AM on June 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
Xiphias Gladius, flagged as fantastic. As an Indian cricket enthusiast, that made me chortle. It's a pretty accurate summary.
posted by Nieshka at 2:53 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Nieshka at 2:53 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
as a minor cricket point, the significance of the 6th/9th position chat at the beginning is that the best batters are normally early in the order, and you put the bowlers at the end with no expectations .
posted by Sebmojo at 5:00 AM on June 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 5:00 AM on June 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oof BinaryApe you've just reminded me of my short lived time on the school cricket team. I really wanted to play but couldn't catch the ball. I was moved to the rounders team where they use a half cricket bat and a tennis ball, instead.
posted by freethefeet at 5:01 AM on June 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by freethefeet at 5:01 AM on June 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
it's nice to have around, like Morris Dancing.As a morris dancer, I have danced during the break in the middle of a very small, very local charity cricket match that nobody was taking very seriously and it was absolutely delightful. Most people were more interested in the food stalls and bouncy castle than the cricket or us dancers, but there was money going in the charity pot and the weather was nice and people were happy.
posted by mathw at 7:13 AM on June 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
> The Alice in Wonderland game you are thinking of might be croquet?
Croquet being a much more cutthroat game, by all accounts. (Apparently, you can knock other players' balls into hedges and shrubbery. Do this three or four times, and they start to get inexplicably irritated.)
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:05 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Croquet being a much more cutthroat game, by all accounts. (Apparently, you can knock other players' balls into hedges and shrubbery. Do this three or four times, and they start to get inexplicably irritated.)
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:05 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Loved the thread - thanks for sharing. I was wondering if the opposition captain was going to offer her some backyard rules like one hand one bounce while she bowled, or first ball trial rule while she was at bat etc. which would have been hilarious given how evidently well she played.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:32 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:32 AM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
> My memories from playing cricket at school are...
Mine are of not being allowed to play cricket because I was a gurl and I was forced to play netball instead chiz chiz chiz
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:43 PM on June 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
Mine are of not being allowed to play cricket because I was a gurl and I was forced to play netball instead chiz chiz chiz
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:43 PM on June 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
Corpse, we did play cricket as girls (as well as rounders, which was always more fun). But we also had the option of stoolball, the weird Sussex ladies-only precursor.
posted by tinkletown at 6:02 PM on June 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by tinkletown at 6:02 PM on June 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Croquet being a much more cutthroat game, by all accounts.
posted by thivaia at 9:32 AM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by thivaia at 9:32 AM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
For more agricultural cricket antics, take a gander at https://twitter.com/ThatsSoVillage . Their regular threads of "What's the most village thing that happened to you this weekend?" are full of great stuff.
posted by vincebowdren at 8:58 AM on June 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by vincebowdren at 8:58 AM on June 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
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