More Balls

I’m going to continue on the theme of sport. This time I want to tell you about cricket.

How is it even a sport?

If it can’t be settled in one day and you need to take a meal break during the course of play, it really should be revamped.

I recommend a one-over, winner-takes-all (without Jimmy Tarbuck) situation. Perhaps introducing tigers to the pitch to speed things up a bit.

I was also forced to play cricket as a schoolboy. It involved mostly standing about, so it should have been right up my street.

I was always careful when fielding to assume a position where the ball was least likely to end up to avoid having to do anything other than stand there, dreaming about what I would have for tea.

“Your turn to bowl, Jones.”

Oh, knackers. I was no good at that.

I ran up and released the ball.  It was all wrong. I released it too late and the ball took its first bounce about a mile from the batsman. It then trickled along the ground, being overtaken by fat, lethargic snails on the way. The batsman swung wildly at it and missed.

I had managed to bowl someone out using an unorthodox technique.

I did it again.

I was like the guy who invented the Fosbury Flop - some looked on with disdain, whilst others applauded my pioneering bowling skills.

Batting was worse.

The ordeal was made more horrific by having to wear a box, sometimes referred to as a “pelvic guard”. The plastic cup, which had clearly never been washed, let alone disinfected, was given to the incoming batsman by the teacher. Who knew how many sweaty, horny teenagers had previously had their junk pressed up against it? We were advised to wear it outside our underpants to avoid contracting anything too hideous. The problem was we had to use them without any means of keeping them in place. We effectively just shoved a piece of plastic down our trousers that fell straight down one leg as soon as you moved,  leaving everyone in fear for the safety of their middle stump and googlies.

My batting was really quite terrible. I would like to say I got bowled out as quickly as possible due to lack of trying, but unfortunately I was facing a bowler who was very familiar with the phrases “cow’s arse” and “banjo”.

“Run!” the teacher yelled as I actually managed to hit a ball.

Try running as a plastic protective cup works its way down your leg and ends up behind one knee.  It turns into some kind of Ministry of Silly Walks and you end up being run out because you can’t move properly.

Days out at Headingley in school time taught me what cricket was really about.

It’s about the same thing that everything is about for the English. Drinking.

Obese men arrived, carrying cases of Castlemaine XXXX on their shoulders and sat there, getting twatted in the blazing sun. I don’t think any of them even remotely cared about the cricket.

If a sport is so horrendous that you have to get pissed to forget that you’re there, why bother?