More Cricket and Limericks plus a touch of the Weather

Some more Cricketing Limericks for fans of them (both Cricket and Limericks ;) )

Cricket is a byword for Weather conversations. Its all about water from the sky, wind from the west, and how the tide affects the pitch when the moon is full. In fact, I'm sure that the reason why English conversation is so skewed towards the weather is because it has such a deep effect on their cricketing psyche. And I'm equally sure that when they go out on tour they carry their damned weather with them. If only we could harness that!

So. All frivolities aside, please.
Serious Question time: How to beak the drought, please?
Answer: Schedule a 5 day test match.
(Of course, since cricket tours are agreed years in advance, you have to know where the droughts are likely to be at that time, natch.) Having said which ...

There's a heat wave thats baking my brain

My body's burned red & my skin is in pain

But there's nothing to fear!

Cos the Cricket is here!

It'll be bucketing down once again

Which satisfies the farmers and the Ducks.
But what about the spectators?
What about the spectators indeed ...

the rain's keeping us all in the shelter

Its cats and its dogs and its helter and skelter

no matter my son

when the cricketing's done

the sun will come out as a belter

All this talking of Rain reminds me, there's one person who makes bowlers and fielders pray for it.
Lots of it. Especially in India.
Especially in, Well, actually ... everywhere ...

the bowlers are praying for rain

Tendulkars at wicket again

a six through the covers

at the end of the overs

sees their averages flush down the drain

But there's always at least one bowler who doesn't seem to mind whose at the crease :)

a fast bowler (we'll call him Dale Steyn)

sends his balls down again and again

if its not past the nose:

its down by the toes

you want runs? there's no gain without pain

Limericks, Cricket, the Weather ... who needs a girlfriend?

I thought I was here for the cricket

drinking beer and pondering the wicket

but the girls in their shorts

cause ungentlemanly thoughts

and most of them perfectly wicked!

yes I could ... yes I could yes I could yes I could ;)

Images (c) the author

Lazy Sundays composing Limericks at the Cricket

 

Last Sunday Niranjan and his family persuaded me at last to spend another day watching the cricket at the Wanderers.
Of course, there are always moments of silence and daydreaming at cricket matches. That's a whole big part of their charm! (Goes without saying ...Five-day matches, not those frantic short games!)
The commentators, also having time on their hands, (in those long stretches of deep concentration and dot balls) decided to call for Limericks. Which gave me all the time of the world to come up with this lot:

Commentary on commentators:
Have you heard of ze Commentator's curse?
Please send us your limericks diverse!
  Just mail us some rubbish
  Mit your name ve vill publish
Vitch is verse? Ze curse or ze Verse?

The referral system:
The umpire's scratching his head
"Is he in? Is he out? Is he dead?"
  With this newfangled referal
  I can do some deferal
"Third Umpire, Its your problem!" he said.

Billy Bowden and his crooked finger:
Billy Bowden still thinks of the girl
made his finger go up in a curl
  the this that and the other
  that he got from her mother
was worth all her giggles and twirls!

Fancy a bit of spot fixing?
I'm hoping that you'll play the game
I'm hoping that you'll think the same
  Leather Jackets, plane tickets
  are better than wickets ~
You're the Cops?! No No! It's a frame!

Clark's first test lament:
An Australian captain called Clarke
Thought this cricketing thing's just a lark
  forty-seven runs later
  he needed a 'gator
to get his team back on the park ...

Legspinner's tactic:
Oh I know of a spinner or two
who make cracks on the pitch with their shoe
  See, it isn't enough
  to talk about stuff
If you're quick, you can find "What to do"

Shane's a pain
Mr Warne's on his way back again
He longs to call out this refrain:
  (when it's pitched in the rough,
  and it's turned just enough),
"Howzat! you're on the next plane"!

She's had it with the cricket!
She picked up his bat in mid-winter
and "Whack!" she caused it to splinter
  Now when nature calls
  his old cricket balls
keep apart his suppurating sphincter

Five-day tests in a nutshell:
I know what you mean my old friend
5-day cricket seems never to end
  the interesting bits
  the wickets and hits
only happen when you're round the bend

All Images (c) the Author

I love cricket, so why am I not going to the Wanderers anymore?

I always loved cricket.
It was the first game that I was able to play as a boy, and although I was never really very good at it, I couldn't get enough. Pickup matches in parks, and later in boarding school would always find me amongst the hopefuls last to be picked, but first in enthusiasm!

TV came very late to my family, so the habit of being at the ground stuck with me.
In the early 2000's I moved to Rosebank: and one of the attractions was the Wanderers just down the road. Close enough to walk to, in fact. So I was one of those people that you see on TV, where there are more players on the field and in the dressing rooms then there are stretched out in the stands.

It never worried me that they weren't large crowds watching cricket. In fact, in some way that was part of its attraction. The fact that the game persisted at the grassroots level despite everything else, for me that was always pretty cool. Truth to tell, you get bigger crowds at the club games than at the Currie cup and similar provincial games. And I still wander down to the zoo lake these days, and idly stand by in the late mid-afternoon sun on Saturday afternoon and watch for a while. Mostly the spectators are family and friends, and it's a pretty safe space for kids to run around and make a noise. So maybe that's why cricket is still so popular with ordinary people.

you might say it's a little bit odd that I no longer attend any of the international matches up there at the big Wanderers Stadium. It's not a friendly place any more to take your friends for a day's outing. From the security guards with their officious, invasive, and plain stupid regulations, which they enforce as if the purpose of the game was to provide them with the platform to exercise their authority; to the rip off vendors, whose sole aim is to foist off bad food at ridiculous prices: heaven help you if you have any sort of dietary restriction, because they confiscate your food/drinks at the gates and make you sit hungry for the rest of the day.

Now I read that the cricket authorities have appointed a marketing firm to find out why people are you no longer coming to their grounds. I guess that they are worried the advertisers will leave them if the grounds are empty ~after all, the shorter forms of the game feed off the atmosphere of the grounds, and that's what the advertisers hook into.

I could have told them the answers to why people are staying away: first off the game is set up for corporate advertising, and not for the people who love and watch the game. We are not consumers, looking to be wooed away from other attractions. We are cricket lovers, come for the cricket. Places where the cricket is no longer the primary concern, why would we be there?

Sad, isn't it? Our cricket administrators just don't get it:
If English football has shown one thing, it's that the fans will tolerate anything when the game is the thing.
It's not too much cricket that's the problem ~it's too much hoopla tied to commercial interests.
You can't build the love of the game through marketing experiences, and finding more and more "exciting" experiences. Sooner or later, something more "exciting" comes across the horizon. Without the true fans there is no game, so put your money into building up cricket lovers, down there at the grassroots.

And here is the funniest thing of all: if I don't watch it at the ground, chances are I won't be watching the match on TV either.

The picture is from a game between South Africa and Sri Lanka at SuperSport Park in Centurion in December of 2003, which is still a much more fan oriented venue than its bigger brother down the drag in Illovo, Johannesburg.