Cricket - a newbie's view

What is cricket? In the US, as children we learn that “crickets” are insects that walk on the ground and hop when you try to catch them. In other parts of the world if you ask, “What is cricket”, cricket is a team sport, a bat and ball game. It is a game in which the batter protects the wicket. It is also the national sport of England.


In an effort to expand our horizons, Floyd and I attended our first cricket match yesterday in Cape Town’s Newlands Stadium and we were privileged to see one of those special sporting events, almost as special as Mickey Mantle hitting his 300th home run, or a horse winning the Kentucky Derby.


It was a scorching day in Newlands Stadium, the 3rd day of the match-up between England and South Africa (the Protea). At game time the temperature was already in the mid-80’s as we and our much more-knowledgeable South African friends took our seats. They had prepared us ahead of time by explaining terms.

Some important ones are “wicket” (three sticks sticking up out of the ground in a row with another stick balanced on top, or an out), “overs” (the bowler (pitcher) changes and the offensive player standing in front of the opposite wicket becomes the active batsman – this happens every 6 balls), “bowler” (a person who on a bounce tries to hit the wicket behind the batter and make the batter out) and “batsman” (the person at bat who tries to hit the ball before it hits the wicket). Points are scored (from 1 to 6) based on where the ball is hit or how many “runs” a batter makes.

There are 9 ways to wicket, i.e., get a batter out. The most common ones are catching a hit ball on the fly, having the ball bounce into the wicket, or LBW, “leg before wicket”, which means the ball bounced by the bowler hits the player’s leg and would have hit the wicket – kind of an interference thing. The bowler usually bounces the ball at the player’s legs.

On this particular day the last three players on England’s team had to take their turn at bat, based on the results at the end of the previous day. England’s opening score was 241-7, 241 points with 7 men out of 10 wicketing (being out). The bowling team needs to get 10 out of the 11 players on a team to wicket to change sides or, after two innings (rounds), to finish a game.

South Africa had previously bowled and their team score was 291. By the time they were done, England had scored a total of 273-10, 18 less points than the South Africa team who had previously bowled, so SA was in the lead and about to extend it. The sides changed.

After scoring, the first South African player Ashwell Prince was out on a LBW (see, we learned a little something.) Prince’s partner for the stand, Hashim Alma, continued to play. The SA team captain, Graeme Smith, joined him. Records were broken. Together the partnership of Alma and Smith broke by 58 runs the record of 172 runs in a stand (one at bat) set in 1972 by Eddie Barlow and Tony Pithey. Alma and Smiths’ new total was 230. Or as the online press at www.iol.za.co puts it, “Smith and Amla (95 off 165 balls, 14 fours) raked in the runs in 54 overs together, a rollicking run-rate of more than four to the over as they tormented a tiring England attack.” By himself, Alma got 95 runs before being forced out.

Graeme Smith continued to score with a new partner. At the end of the day he had scored over 150 runs, and will continue to bat tomorrow when the test enters the fourth day. At the end of the day, says IOL online, “Smith advanced his score by 97 runs from 65 to 162 in the 34-over final session yesterday - scoring at a shade under three to the over on his own!” In more than 19 tests where Smith has gotten over 100 runs, SA has won.

Will Graeme Smith add to his run streak in the 4th test since he is still the batsman? Will the SA Protea continue to score runs at a run rate of four plus to an over? Will they be able to get 400 runs quickly before 10 players “wicket”? Will SA then be able to get all the men on England’s side to “wicket” before they score and beat them? If they don’t get all ten batters to “wicket”, the match ends in a draw, even if one team is leading. These are the issues SA cricket fans will be wrestling with during the 4th day.

Multiple times Floyd and I have watched cricket on television and found it hard to understand. I never understood that it was a game in which the batter defended the wicket. It was much more interesting in person. How else would you know that the teams take a lunch break for 45 minutes at 12:30 pm, the stands empty and the spectators come down onto the field and examine the wickets and the playing field? How else would you know that a break is taken for 20 minutes at tea time? And too, how else would you understand that it is the interaction between the batter, the bowler and ball, and the ever moving fielders that make this game interesting.

We will go again.


Love from us and our friends watching the test - Alan with flag, Floyd, Rae, Roy, Lionel and Vincent.

Betsy

Cape Town Winter 2009

Greetings from Cape Town,

Way back in 2006 we experienced a series of fires on Table Mountain. The flames came dangerously close to homes. Ashes drifted through the air, starting other fires and creating a huge mess. Helicopters roared during the daylight hours dumping water onto hotspots. The devastation was incredible with acres of burned trees and plants, dead animals, and homeless birds.


Yet there was hope. Fire causes the release of seeds from the Protea family of plants and is a natural event in the fynbos (fine bush) ecosystem. I have a photo of a seed whose structure is simply incredible – looking like an umbrella, obviously evolved to take flight and soar to another, hopefully receptive, location. The flowers that next spring were incredible.

We took the dogs on a walk through that area this morning. The pines that had been scorched had died and most had fallen in the winds. Pines are not indigenous to the area. They were initially planted by the early white colonizers to provide masts for the sailing ships. So, it is ok that they are going.


As we looked up past the cable car station to the top of Table Mountain, we could see a few remaining pines and acres of what looked like scrub brush. Yes, there were some tiny white and yellow flowers, but you really needed to look closely to see anything else.





Looking closely soon became the name of the game as our dog walk was interrupted time and again with the call “Look at this!” “This” included the sugarbirds with their long tails and curved beaks, adapted for dipping deeply into the protea flowers. Also blooming were the tiny white flowers of the oxalis, several varieties of Erica (heathers), and a yellow daisy-like flower on a small shrub.


But the most striking flowers were the protea. (The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Carolus Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus who could change his form at will, because proteas have such different forms.) They also bloom at different times of the year. The pictures I am including are only a few varieties of the winter bloomers. We have yet to get to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden to see some of the other, even more spectacular varieties.
























Very few of these plants are more than two feet tall – they’ve only been growing for a few years – yet they are already demonstrating the amazing diversity present within the Cape Floral Kingdom.

The spring bulbs and iris-family plants are not on show yet but their green leaves are present and promising quite a display in August. More on that later, obviously.

Floyd