Cricket.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright. Enough of the conversation, may I now endeavour to push back the barriers of darkness.

First of all I am a great admirer of the game of baseball. My mother played baseball when she was at University in Melbourne. And I played Baseball when I was in the Army. I wasn’t very good at it but I enjoyed it. Baseball is an exciting game. It is, with cricket, one of the great ‘bat-and-ball’ games.

But allow me to elucidate.

All ‘bat-and-ball’ games have a few basics. One team has a ball and they throw it at a member of the other team and he/she hits the ball and tries to run a certain distance from one base to another. There are many ways that the batter can fail. If he hits the ball and the ball is caught without touching the ground he is ‘out’. There are other ways to be out but that will do for now.

The batter can score a point by running from one base to another- cricket – or from one base to a home base – baseball.

I do not need to explain much more than this.

In baseball the average number of home runs scored in any game is a bit more than 8. You can check here.

In the modern era, and I know some people have difficulty extracting themselves from the mire of the past, there are three forms of cricket.

The first form of the game is Twenty20.

In this game the batting side of 11 attempts to score as many runs as possible from 120 balls. The teams then swap places and the other team attempts to score the same number of runs plus one. In Twenty20 the average number of runs scored in any game is a bit more than 300′.

A typical Twenty20 game is completed in about three hours, with each innings lasting around 75–90 minutes and a 10–20-minute interval. This is much shorter than previously-existing forms of the game, and is closer to the time span of other popular team sports. It was introduced to create a fast-paced form of the game which would be attractive to spectators at the ground and viewers on television.

The second form of the game is One Day or 50/50. In this game the batting side has to score as many runs as possible from Fifty overs. An over consists of one bowler, bowling six balls in a group, followed by another bowler bowling a further six and so on, for a total of 300 balls.

In One Day games many teams can score over 300 runs in their 50 overs but the scores range considerably from 100 to 400.

Both of these forms of the game are exciting and interesting just as many games of baseball are exciting and interesting.

But how can a game where less than ten runs can be witnessed in the whole match be exciting and interesting? The answer is because the tension that is built up becomes infectious. The skill of the pitcher trying to outwit the batter becomes infectious. The batters trying to steal a base and so getting closer and closer to home is also infectious.

But all these are games. I repeat they are games.

But I wasn’t talking about games. I was talking about Test Cricket. 

There are differences.

Test cricket is something that should be a part of the United Nations.

Test cricket is a battle between two nations, a war if you wish, where the combatants are not killed. There are threats made. The Prime Minister of the relevant Host nation is always in attendance. National well being is advanced. The winner takes the prize.

But

and it is a big ‘BUT’, because for the loser there will be another war fought in another two or three or four years. And again there will be no civilian deaths. There will be no drone strikes with multitudes of co-lateral damage.

Let me tell of a fictional international situation and you ask yourself what the result might be.

Let’s assume that there was a large colony of a powerful old nation.

This large colony had a large population with some very disparate religious groupings.

After much internal strife the large colony was granted independence.

After much more strife this large area was broken up into different areas and eventually there came about four separate nations. Between the two larger nations there existed a wonderful smaller area which both nations claimed should be a part of theirs.

The two larger nations had their own religion and each religion was almost completely and utterly in compatible. Not only that each of these two nations had a large and competent military structure.

The question I asked you was this: Would these two nations go to war?

The answer is: Almost certainly.

But if we look at India and Pakistan and the disputed area known as Kashmir, then these two countries have sat on their guns pointed across borders for the last Seventy Years.

But there has never been an all out war between the two.

Now I know I am drawing a long bow here, and I trust you will allow me this latitude, but there is no doubt, in all seriousness that India cannot go to war with Pakistan if there is a TEST MATCH series to be played.

I will give you an example.

When I was in the Army in the early Seventies we had a visit from some Indian Army Officers. At the time there was a cross-border standoff in the Himalayan Mountains between India and Pakistan. We were watching an Australian-England Test Match on the TV in the Officers Mess and one of the Indian Majors was relating how he was on the front line at the same time as an India-Pakistan Test was being played. He said that although The Indian Base could get radio coverage of the match the Pakistan Army Unit was unable to hear anything. It was therefore decided that they would lay a line from the Indian Base to the Pakistani Base so that everyone could keep up with the score. During the whole series only a few token angry shots were fired, although neither High Commands would ever confirm this matter.

To sum: Test Cricket may at times be as exciting as watching paint dry, and if you are of that opinion then there is little more I can do.

But one or two of you might be able to say that it is a lot better to watch paint dry, than for two great nations to go to war where millions would die.

Foot Note.

If anyone living in Europe, who has never seen a cricket match I have given a link for the Cricket Organisations for Belgium, France and Germany. If you go on line you will certainly be able to find a club where you could go and watch.

http://cricket.de/ This is the web site for the German Cricket Association.

http://francecricket.com.

https://www.cricket-belgium.com  The Belgian Cricket Federation.

Also go the the International Cricket Council site to see which countries are currently playing a cricket match. And if you are really interested there are many questions answered on the site.

https://www.icc-cricket.com/

Finally; If you ever hear or see a report of a World Series of Cricket you can rest assured that the series involves more than just one solitary country and not one that considers that it alone is all that the world comprises.