Playing Cricket

Last night I learned a little about playing cricket. Cricket is a popular sport here in the UK. Most people assume, as I did, that it is like baseball. It does have a small ball, a bat, and is played outdoors but after that the similarities soon end. The ball is smaller than a baseball, the bat is larger with a ridge on one side and flat on the other. The playing field is in a circle instead of a diamond. No one wears a glove except the one playing the position we would call a catcher. After playing a little "catch," I am especially thankful for our gloves. When you pitch, you throw it overhand in sort of a windmill motion, letting it bounce just before the batter. Therefore, the batter most times must hit it off the bounce. We all know that when a ball of any kind bounces it can go just about any direction from there. That makes it tough to hit.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be learning on a night when the "senior" team plays and that I thought this was an especially good group to learn with (thinking they were older folks). Wrong. What my host (from the church) meant by seniors were seniors in high school 17-19 years old. It worked out okay, they were gracious, let me mix in and "ball" (pitch) a little and then do some catching (catching fly balls basically), remember you catch with your bare hands, ouch!
Their coach for the summer is a professional player with a team in South Africa, a guy named Wayne, he was cool and taught me the basics.
One of the players/assistant coaches was a Sunni Muslim guy, about 35-40ish who lives here in the UK. We had some interesting conversations out in the field.
Oh, one last thing. A single game of cricket can theoretically go for five days and still end in a tie. I don't quite understand why but Wayne and others say its possible. We Americans have a tough time with ties. Remember the Major League Baseball All-Star game that ended in a tie a few years ago because of pitching shortages and the commissioner calling the game? There was a national uproar in sports America. I even thought it was crazy. No ties for us but in cricket, it can happen.
Anyhow, lots of fun, I'm pretty sore but learned something new.