Good Lord! It's Cricket!

We live in the shadow of Lord's Cricket Ground. In the cricket world, this place is Mecca, the Wrigley or Lambeau Fields of Cricket. It is huge. Cricket fans come from miles away to see a match here. Bit of historical trivia - this week the first night matches were held, ever, under temporary light structures. It has created sort of a glow in the horizon out our family room window. I am sure the people who live right next door have another name for it.

Lord's Cricket Ground is home to and owned by Marleybone Cricket Club. It is a private members club and until 1993 was the governing body of cricket in England and most of the world. They have 18,000 members but they have a long waiting list for membership. They only allow a few hundred new members per year. Currently the waiting list for new membership is somewhere over 15 years. Membership entitles you to buy seats in certain stands, avail yourself of certain restaurants and bars not opened to the general public. It is very much like buying season tickets, sort of. Now, if you are a member you can't show up just wearing anything. Certain seats require a certain dress code and just about all of the good ones require jacket and tie for the men and dressy casual for women (no jeans, no matter how expensive). But don't worry, there are plenty of signs around to remind you of the proper attire.

Being so close, you can imagine that we have been to many a cricket match. You can imagine it but it just wouldn't be true. We haven't been to one match since we have been here. That is until last week.

We had nothing planned for a Saturday morning, and we had heard there was a match there that day so Chizz walked up to see if he could score some tickets. He could. It was day 4 of a 4 day match. That's right, one match that lasted 4 days. When we walked in, a few minutes late, we noticed that the place was just about empty. I am not talking a few empty seats, I am talking hundreds of empty seats. This picture is taken while play is going on. Apparently for some of these lesser matches, especially ones that take 4 days, people just wander in and out.

I have been struggling with how to describe cricket. It is too simplistic to say it is like baseball. True there are batters, a pitcher (called a bowler in cricket), there are referees. The
referees are interesting. They stand right behind the wicket, behind the batter. They wear jaunty little hats. See? And when the bowler comes up, if he is wearing a sweater and a hat, the referee holds it for him while he throws. It would be like the home plate umpire holding the batter's mitt for him while he bats. You can just about make out the sweater hanging over the arm of the referee.

The bowler throws 6 balls to try and get the batter out. When he is done throwing, he walks to the very far corner of the field to wait for his next turn
to throw. As far as I could tell, he just waits there, although I guess he could field a ball that is hit out there. He puts on his sweater, watches the game and gets ready for his next turn at the ball. One thing I also noticed is that he will sign autographs as well. A number of boys brought up their cricket bats and the bowlers would sign the bats DURING the match.

Other similarities? Guys in the stand keeping score. Other
differences? When the team that is batting is up, the only two players on the field are the batters that take turns. And they can be up there forever or until they get out. To give you an idea, we were there for 2 hours and the same team batted the entire time we were there. We saw two batters get out. When a batter gets out, another one comes from the club house where the team hangs out until it is either their turn to bat or to take the field. They don't hang out in a dugout on the field watching the game. They are in a club house with a balcony, where they can choose to come out and watch the game or not. I didn't see too many of the batting team's guys hanging out on the balcony. I think they have barcaloungers and cable tv in the club house.

We had no clue about cricket when we went to the match and I don't think we have any better understanding but it was fun. We were able to get tickets because I think the teams we saw were like seeing the Milwaukee Brewers and Kansas City Royals play. Only a very select few people would be interested in that game. Just like Saturday.

I like going to sporting events live, even ones I have no clue about. Up next? Maybe rugby, or shinty or the caber toss. Look out!!