by Jon Coe

Created on: July 15, 2008

Yawn.........Cricket?.....My favorite boring game! As comedian John Cleese put it, "God gave cricket to the English, so that it would teach them what eternity was like." Or words to that effect. I thought this was so true and so funny, because I was forced to play this laborious game every spring at school.

I've played Monopoly for seven hours and scrabble for five, but a cricket match tops everything. However, most cricket games that I played usually ended in blood shed, which of course gives a little more dimension to my distant memories.

Both my father and great uncle would spend days in their back yards, listening to cricket matches on the old wireless radio. I guess this was more exciting than the visual thing? Watching cricket on television was boring enough, so listening to it on the radio must have given them a world of unworldly visions.

I can just see aliens dressed in space suits swiping at 100 mph cricket balls and watching the look on their faces when someone shouts, "HOWZAT!"......... The Martians look around, and those two little pieces of wood are missing from the top of their stumps!

I always thought that someone came up from behind and flicked those little doohickeys to the ground, as I've never seen a wicket take a hit, or imagined what it is like when it happens, because it always happened so fast.

Who would have thought that an over-arm throw would be so powerful? But I guess that from the boredom of watching a cricket bowler take a half-mile walk, then a half-mile run back, followed by a quick ball release, would take us all by surprise.

When I used to play cricket in high school, they always stuck me on the worst team. Our batters would all be struck out within twenty minutes, which meant that we would have to spend the next twenty five hours, out fielding.

One time, I was woken up by a very hard object hitting me on my forehead around three in the morning. Luckily I caught the ball, otherwise we would have had to spend another night there.

The best cricket moment ever for me, was when I was engrossed in a conversation with about six other out- fielders..............I think we were discussing why Newton was sitting under an apple tree, when suddenly we heard a ruckus coming from the in-field.

Back in those days, we English school boys never knew what direct sunlight looked like, until we all ran to catch that little red pebble that was hurtling down toward us. All of a sudden it was there and then there was blinding light, followed by a very shrill scream!

Yep, the guy right next to me caught that red-stitched-leather-bound lump of lead, right between his eyes. I never saw him again. Kewl!

Another time when we were playing cricket, there were some guys practicing for sports day in the next field. All of a sudden I heard a yelp and I looked over and a javelin had pinned one of my fellow out-fielder's feet to the ground. Great memories!

I've played rugby, soccer, soft ball and baseball, but I have never seen as much excitement as when I played cricket. I know for a fact that some of my school mates never got the opportunity to father children due this game, despite all the cod pieces and leg guards that we used to wear.

It's a shame they don't show this stuff on television. Perhaps one day they will make a movie about it. "Cricket......behind the scenes. What the most boring game in the world doesn't want you to see!"

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