Another Aussie over here!
[stands up, waves hands in air, gets everyone's attention, sees everybody looking at him and hides under his chair]
People were talking about cricket earlier, and I think that Bill Bryson (alright, he's a septic, but that doesn't matter too much, does it?) has a few interesting things to say about it.
ahem.
"I had stumbled into the surreal and rewarding world of cricket on the radio.
After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with cricket that the introduction of golf carts wouldn't fix in a hurry. It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by milions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game... It is the only game that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport where the spectators burn as many calories as the players (more if they are moderately restless).
[cut parody of cricket commentary. very funny]
I may not have got all the terminology exactly right, but I believe I have caught the flavour of it. The upshot was that Australia was giving England a good thumping, but then Australia pretty generally does. In fact Australia pretty generally beats most people at most things... Hardly a sport exists at which the Australians do not excel. Do you know that there are even forty Australians playing baseball at the proffessional level in the United States, including five in the Major Leagues - and Australians don't even play baseball, at least not in any particularly devoted manner. They do all this on the world stage and play their own games as well, notably a very popular form of loosely contained mayhem called Australian Rules. It is wonder in such a vigorous and active society that there is anybody left to form an audience.
No, the mystery of cricket is not that Australians plat it well, but that they play it at all, It has always seemed to me a game much too restrained for the rough-and-tumble Australian temperament. Australians much prefer games in which brawny men in scanty clothing bloody each others noses. I am quite certain that if the rest of the world vanished overnight and the development of cricket was left in Australian hands, within a generation the players would be wearing shorts and using the bats to hit each other.
And the thing is, it would be a much better game for it."
-Bill Bryson Down Under
