#everyone else just threw a cricket ball at high speed at head height and hoped it didn't hit them

[tiggymalvern]

Okay, but... this is deeply US-centric. In the UK, lacrosse is played almost exclusively by teenaged girls, and the teenage girls who are really into it are mostly gay.

rb with your straight number

[tartlette1968]

Excuse me a moment, I'm about to get really seriously Australian on everyone. I'm going to talk about Cricket.

I don't watch Cricket all that much. In High School I was always hoping that when it came time for my team to field, they would put me way out where the ball wasn't likely to come. It was a mutually acceptable arrangement, we all knew I couldn't catch, or throw very well. If I had my way, I would have avoided batting, too.

I've hated playing Cricket at school, from the very first time we had to play it in Grade 1. I mean Jesus fucking Christ, I know sport is a substitute for arenas of mortal combat, but shit. The ball could break bones, or kill a person, the bat is a hulking lump of wood, and you literally wear armour to protect you. It's probably a game that started with three spears being driven into the ground, a man given a club, and told to fend off stones thrown at full speed to stop them from hitting the spears. And it's played for fun.

Then there is appealing. Appealing is the fielding team turning to the umpire and asking them if that was out. If the team doesn't appeal, then the batsman isn't out. I mean if the batsman is bowled, as in the bowler bowling the ball at the batsman, and he misses it and it hits the wickets and knocks the tiny bails off the top, then the batsman is out, no umpire needed. But in everything else, you need to appeal. In what other sport is it considered necessary that the players ask the Umpire to actually be an umpire at odd times?

Cricket is supposed to be a refined game, one of niceness and manners. Well manners of sorts. If running full pelt at another human being, and pelting a ball into the ground so that it rises up from the pitch to thunder through at head height in order to scare the living shit out of the batsman is considered good manners. Hint, it is. Pelting the ball directly at the batsman's head is not good manners, apparently. Cricket balls are potentially deadly projectiles, and there have been a few deaths caused by their impact. So, yes, some amount of restraint and calm is called for.

In fact Cricket features prominently in a saying that invokes fair play and good manners... "It's just not Cricket, Old Boy."

It's this last aspect, fair play, that has been rapidly doing the rounds on social media for the last few days. "The Spirit of the Game" is the phrase being thrown around, but they mean fair play.

The game of Cricket was invented by the English. But just over a hundred years ago the English Cricket team was soundly beaten by a visiting Australian side, and much lamentation ensued. After the defeat, a notice was put in a newspaper that read like an obituary for English Cricket. A ceremony was held, where a wooden bail was burnt, and the small pile of ashes that resulted was put into a tiny wooden urn specially made for the purpose. Thereafter this little urn became the trophy for an annual series of matches that England and Australia took turns to host.

This year it has been England's turn to host the 5 test matches. A test match takes place over five (sometimes) very loong days. And the last one, at Lord's Cricket Ground, was a doozy.

It was a few seconds of play that has caused so much debate, anger, and abuse. The Australian wicket keeper threw the ball at the stumps, and successfully hit the wickets and dislodged the bails. The English batsman who was facing up at that end of the pitch had left the safety of his "crease"--the line at either end of the pitch, and was given "Out" by the umpire.

Now this aspect of Cricket, "The Spirit of the Game", goes beyond the rules, to ethics. Something might be within the rules, but is it fair?

By agreement, the end of a passage of play is met by any number of conditions being true. If this didn't happen, then there would likely be hours of tense standoff between fielding team and batting team as they tried to outsmart each other. One of these conditions is when the ball is caught in the wicket keeper's gloves, and is held there for some time. In any case, once the ball is declared "dead" no more play can take place until the bowler bowls the ball again. This "dead ball" is basic, and a mutual, unspoken agreement by both teams, not the umpires.

So now we have those few seconds of play, and the aftermath. As the Australian side walked through what is called "The Long Room" in the MCC clubrooms for the lunch break, several paid up, uniformed MCC members hurled insults at them. I say "insults" because three members were suspended for what they said. But I imagine they would have been something along the lines of, "Oh, I say Chaps, that was out of order, old Bean. You bloody Col-ohhh-nials, why don't you just go back home. I say, Chaps, we'd better keep our hands on the old wallet, there's no telling what these Awwwstraylians will pilfer next."

The actual English crowd was angry, and since then the calls accusing the Australian Cricketers of cheating have spread across social media.

As I said, I'm far from being an expert on the rules of Cricket. But being accused of cheating is a pretty deep cut.

Several years ago the Australian Cricket team was caught cheating. A player smuggled sandpaper onto the field, and tampered with the ball. We, in Australia, were embarrassed, angry at the three players involved, and incredibly disgusted.

But this latest thing. Look if an Australian player was dismissed in the same fashion, I would be thinking, "Bloody stupid idiot." I mean to be honest, this is a thing we were taught in Primary School, you don't leave your crease.

There are several things about this that make it cut and dried.

The batsman dismissed is, himself, the wicket keeper for the English side, so he bloody well knows the rules. He attempted exactly the same thing during the Australian innings. The Australian side had noticed the batsman's habit of just walking out of his crease. This was the last delivery of the over. The last delivery of the over ceases to be live for certain when the umpire calls out "Over." The umpire declared him to be "Out". Basically there is a very very thin grey area.

But that doesn't seem to have had any impact on the English Cricket fans.

"The Spirit of the Game" is that final thing. But the Spirit of Cricket is that people pit their skill against each other. That's the spirit of any game. Cricket, like many games, involves physical ability, hand/eye co-ordination, and wits and cunning. But it involves an honesty, an honesty of effort. It is not fair to let your opponent win if they falsely believe you are trying as hard as you can to beat them.

The spirit of the game is to play to the best of your ability, within the rules.