Tower and Town, July 2016

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Cricket For Beginners

We are familiar with our gender differences. But men and women can be further subdivided into two species: those who love and understand cricket, and those who don’t. I belong to the first category, and so here are some words to those for whom cricket is a mystery.

We all love a good picnic on the boundary. But don’t ask us what is going on, because we will tell you. It is chess on a field, we will say. We will talk about who is in, and who is out, and the nuances of the wicket. We will tell you that there are six balls in an over (but might not think to tell you what an over is). We will scatter our monologue with terms like leg-breaks and googlies, and will explain the significance of cow corner. You might try to interrupt, tell us you’ve been on holiday and were almost eaten by a tiger, but we are unimpressed. For by now we are onto the nuances of cover drives and reverse sweeps over silly point.

So I suggest you pass us by. Take your picnic to a different corner of the ground, settle back in the sunshine and watch. Sip wine. Make a daisy chain. Notice the warmth of the sun, the smell of freshly-mown grass, the thwack of leather on willow. You might dare to start watching. You might, slowly, work out who plays for which team (not instantly obvious when everyone plays in white). Take a look at the scorecard in the corner, which – if you are not too drowsy from the wine and the warmth of summer – will begin to make sense. You will watch fast bowlers, slow bowlers, and muse on the difference. You will realise why wickets matter; you might even be distracted from your wine and find yourself cheering a six. What if, you might think, that were me, dressed in white, with that bat in your hand?

That is the moment when you have stepped from the cricket-is-a-mystery camp to stroll round the boundary and sit beside those of us who love it. That is the moment to ask us what is going on.

Jo Carroll