Deespatcher

the best Cricket description I've found.

"After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with the game that the introduction of golf carts wouldn't fix in a hurry. It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players -- more if they are moderately restless. It is the only competitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning.

Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each delivery, collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with it to center field; and that there, after a minute's pause to collect himself, he turns and runs full tilt toward the pitcher's mound before hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before him wearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to to handle radio-active isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg. Imagine moreover that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartens him sufficiently to try to waddle forty feet with mattress's strapped to his legs, he is under no formal compunction to run; he may stand there all day, and, as a rule, does. If by some miracle he is coaxed into making a misstroke that leads to his being put out, all the fielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a hug. Then tea is called and every one retires happily to a distant pavilion to fortify for the next siege. Now imagine all this going on for so long that by the time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your library books are overdue. There you have cricket.

The mystery of cricket is not that Australians play it well, but that they play it at all. It has always seemed to me a game much too restrained for the rough-and-tumble Australian temperament. Australians much prefer games in which brawny men in scanty clothing bloody each other's noses. I am quite certain that if the rest of the world vanished over night and the development of cricket was left in Australian hands, within a generation the players would be wearing shorts and using the bats to hit each other. And the thing is, it would be a much better game for it."

From "In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson

trafly

You guys should quit playing with your wickets and have a relaxing evening out with a Pinnacle flight attendant. A few drinks...a moonlight walk....see where the night leads

Nitefrater

You're thinking of Hurling. Curling is shuffleboard on ice.

UPSDISPATCHER

Well said, Deespatcher. Although your literary references are quite impressive, they are not nearly as impressive as your beer list!

Check 6

Hurling....No... that's the state sport of Wisconsin.. as played any nite of the week at a nearby bar, or at a friends house, or at home and often out on the ice....

Nitefrater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling

It's amazing what's out there beyond the bottom of a beer mug in Wisconsin...

stinsonjr

I love the idea where a bunch of drunk Irishman beat each other with sticks...I will have to look into that more.

Yeah, Cliff Diving is Mexican's in Speedo's. That is not why I watched though (not that there is anything wrong with it if I had), but I was always interested in their timing. If they mis-timed the jump with the tide, they would be diving onto sharp rocks. It was kind of like an X-sport before X-sports.

Winged Wheeler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFeONGIVCCQ

I've seen airports smaller than the field they're playing on. Not a bad video, plenty more over at You Tube.

WW

Trash Hauler 1

Its actually Hurling. Think lacrosse played at a faster pace by people with more attitude. Lovely sport. All amateur and the players are the heroes of the town.

TH1

Busboy

Hurling and stout? Hurling and stout?...

That's has a familiar ring to it.