Cricket

When crossing the Bequia channel I usually put my head down, close my eyes and concentrate on not getting seasick. I have never grown sea legs, and after more than forty years have pretty much given up trying. Reading a book or trying to have a conversation are difficult tasks for me on a moving boat, and I prefer to be left alone for the duration of the trip. However, whenever the Prime Minister of the country plopped down beside me on the ferry to have a chat, I always made the supreme effort of straightening up and paying attention, an effort I didn’t make for just ANYONE.

On one such occasion, Son Mitchell asked me if I was following the cricket and I had to laugh. The entire country was at that time so engrossed by the cricket matches that service at a bar or restaurant often had to wait for a break in the game. People walked about with transistor radios glued to their ears, and children played endless games of cricket on the beaches with home-made bats and wickets. The cricket matches were the topic of choice under the Almond Tree, and for someone who didn’t understand the game it was like listening to a foreign language!  I had grown up in Canada playing baseball, hockey and volleyball, and could discuss those sports in detail, but the game of cricket was (and still is!) a confusing mystery.

On learning that I didn’t understand the game Prime Minister Mitchell launched into teaching mode with enthusiasm, and devoted the entire crossing explaining the “ins and outs” of cricket to me and, being a captive audience of one, I paid close attention as he outlined the game. Evidently if you’re on the side that’s in you go out, and when a player is out, he comes in. The next player goes in until he’s out, and then of course he comes in. When all the players are out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out unless, of course, they are still in and not out. With this head-spinning explanation of cricket, the only person in the game I was able to keep straight was the umpire – the umps stay out all the time. The game ends when both sides have been in and all the players have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the players have been in. My only question to all of this when Son asked if I understood was, “how on earth do you know which team won”?

Son went on to describe the rules governing the game, and they were as confusing to me as the game itself. Evidently cricket has 42 rules, and there are sub-rules to the rules. Well, ALL games have rules, but cricket takes its rules and regulations to a whole different level. For example, unlike stealing a base in baseball or faking a pass in football, “fake fielding” is not allowed in the game of cricket. A fielder who merely pretends he has the ball but does NOT can cost his team 5 runs if such “fakery” prevents the batsman from scoring runs. Another iron-clad rule in cricket has to do with the grass on the cricket pitch, and this rule made me giggle. All playing fields are mowed before a sports game to ensure that the ground is level, and skating rinks are always polished in a similar manner. When it comes to cricket, the rules state that the pitch MUST be mowed every single day until the match is over, whether there is grass on the pitch or not. To this day I have visions of a lawn-mower being pushed through a sandy, grass-less pitch because the rules say it has to be mowed, seems like a rather weird regulation!

For the entire hour it took to get from Bequia to Kingstown Son filled my spinning head with cricket and, as the ferry docked, assumed that I now understood how the game was played. He looked so pleased with himself that I didn’t have the heart to tell him the game was even MORE confusing to me after his detailed explanations. I continued to watch cricket games in total ignorance, cheering when everyone else cheered, and moaning when everyone else moaned. I hated going to actual matches, and did my best to avoid them; pretending to like and understand cricket hurt my poor brain, plus I felt like a complete phony when I cheered and clapped without understanding WHY I was doing so. It made me feel quite foolish, but I wasn’t willing to admit that the game of cricket stumped me.

When Son Mitchell later coined the phrase “bat but don’t score” my admiration was genuine; it was his way of advising the country’s young men to use condoms while having sex to prevent AIDS, and I thought it was pretty clever to use the sport everyone was so passionate about to make his point. However, the best condom advertisement for the prevention of AIDS was the one I saw in Barbados; the large billboard portrayed a pretty young woman dressed in cricket gear and standing in front of a wicket with a bat in her hand. The caption read, “It’s your wicket, protect it!”

The actual GAME of cricket? I gave up trying to figure it out after that channel crossing with Son Mitchell, his lengthy explanation of the game only served to enhance my confusion!