For most of today, I devoted my time to professional development in the form of attending "the cricket." The match was the Prime Minister's XI vs West Indies, held at our local venue in Canberra called Manuka Oval. The home team was literally the Prime Minister's 11, a section of players by the Prime Minister himself and they were playing against the West Indies cricketers. The PM XI is an annual match that is played against a prominent team from another nation here in Australia's Capital.
While I have some understanding of cricket because I have taught it for a few years, I have never attended a real match. I really enjoyed watching it and now I'm inspired to play more. The famous Chris Gayle of the "Windies" treated us to a hitting clinic as the first batsman. He launched several balls into the crowd and scored 146 runs. There was rain delay before the break for lunch.
For those of you unfamiliar with Cricket, full matches take several days. This was a "one-dayer" which had limits on overs. Basically, each side bats once and receives a fixed number of bowls from the other team. The match went from about 10 am to 6 pm, so it was a long day out compared to other sports. I found it to be at least as exciting as baseball and the fans added down-time entertainment that I would rate as on-par with Yankees fans in baseball.
The day ended with the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd coming out on the oval and awarding the trophies.
Here are links: Fox Sports Coverage (with video) | Herald Sun Coverage (with picture) | Canberra Times Frontpage.
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Comments
Ive always been kind of interested in cricket. I knew it had similarities to baseball, which I love. I had no idea the matches lasted so long, everyone I know complains about how long baseball games last! Ive seen a few snippets of it played on tv, but this post has really sparked my interest. The fact that you got to see something so prestigious in the Prime Minister and his team is awesome! You may have already answered this question before but how did you come up on such an opportunity not only for this particular event but Austrailia in general?
That sounds like a great experience. It's fun attending sporting events overseas and seeing how locals support their own teams. It still amazes me that cricket games can last for days, it's good the game you saw was a one-dayer.
Chris, the story of making this trip to Australia happen is very long, too long to worth reading here. In short, I was supposed to be in Australia for 9 month sabbatical until the university dropped sabbaticals the year I was up for it. So, that is why I am teaching this class from Australia, instead of dedicating time to another project. Nevertheless, this has been a fantastic experience and I am also making some good professional contacts and enjoying some visits at the Australian Institute of Sport, which is located here.
Wow! This sounds like an amazing experience! I would love to attend something like that. I didn't realize that games could last multiple days. That is so crazy to me! The athletes must be in good shape and be able to focus for a long time! I would love to watch/play cricket some day!
That is so cool! I wish I could go see something like that. I don't know anything really about cricket, but that would be a great event to see and I'm sure it was a lot of fun to be at! Thanks for sharing!
Although the games last several days, I was thinking that it really isn't much different than a baseball series, where they usually play 4 or 3 game series at a time during the season, and then longer series in the post-season. Each individual inning in cricket could be thought of as a game (like in baseball) except it lasts quite a bit longer. They have tea breaks and also a break for lunch. The available batsmen sit up in an air-conditioned box while they wait.
I've stopped and watched some local recreational cricket leagues on the many ovals that exist around the city. The batsmen there just wait in the shade with some drinks and food while they kick back and watch the game. Some of the matches had some really young kids out there. I drove through Melbourne on Saturday about a month ago and was surprised that just about every suburb had a serious game of cricket going, usually adjacent to some lawn bowling action too. Sports clubs are especially popular there.
The grass ovals can host cricket, Aussie Rules Football (a.k.a. "footy"), and rugby (which is starting up this month). Often a track is also built around the perimeter that can be used for both bicycle racing and running events. The lawn bowling and tennis usually has a separate venue nearby. I'm told that historically sports carnivals have been very popular. These are festivals of several sporting events that take place at these venues.
That's great that you got to watch a cricket match of that magnitude. While I was living in Singapore, cricket was one of the required units that we had to participate in (in high school). Being a softball player, I thought I would have had an easy time transitioning. Boy was I wrong. The way I remember cricket is that unlike baseball/softball where the batter tries to hit the ball as far as possible, cricket is a game of strategy and finesse. It is a true gentleman's sport and the fan base in countries like Singapore, India and Australia is similar to what we see with American football in the U.S.
Another required P.E. unit (in Singapore) was rugby which was actually taught to us by our P.E. teacher who was a retired national rugby star Nat Bava. My memories of rugby is with hilarity. Imagine a muddy rugby field, (as it was in the middle of monsoon season), and a high school P.E. teacher who had the intensity of Bill Parsells. Rain or shine we were expected to dress and learn the skills (punting, scrums, tackling and lateral passing) necessary for playing rugby, which upset a lot of my classmates. I can't imagine using Coach Bava's methodologies for teaching rugby today...
I'm finding that out too, about the finesse of cricket offensive strategy. You wouldn't think this was the case watching Chris Gayle though, who was pummeling the fans. He even got fancy and went "reverse sweep" on one and it almost went over the boundary in the air.
Rugby season starts here in a couple weeks! They're super crazy about that here.