Up for a spot of cricket, mate

There is a famous cigar website where a blogger was talking about being a Yankee fan in Cuba and having people say "Go Yankees" to him in bars or restaurants in Havana.  The another blogger commented that being from Asiatica, or pacifica, Oceana, wherever, that he has watched a little baseball in the USA during a visit.  He found it murderously slow. 

Well as it happens, I was trying to catch a LSU game online, and stumbled onto a site that had it, plus cricket and CFL games, too.  So not knowing how the heck Cricket is played, I decided to watch one night.  Sometimes I would ALMOST have it figured out and then something would happen to make me think, "NO, that can't be right."  I WAS struck by how one side does all it's bowling or batting at one time, then the other team tries to top their score after switching off halfway through.  After three hours, I finally figured it out.  But I had to check back in the next day to watch the complete on-demand version to make sure the other team DID in fact get to bat.  They ended up losing by a few points, it was NZ vs Bangaladesh.  The kiwi gents lost.  But even as I waited for the intolerable interval between when the bowler, from WAY off, ran up to the line and bowled the ball, at times the action was quick enough.  And I THINK the long run-ups to bowl are all show and confusion.  I saw a guy bowl just as effectively from 5 feet behind the line.

But if you've never watched cricket, surf over to ESPN3 and watch a match some time. 

http://espn.go.com/espn3/player?id=100289&league=Cricket

If you can't figure most of it out after one match, look up some rules videos for idiots.  Fascinating, yes.  Exciting, not really exciting per se, like the man said about baseball.  But still I can't stop watching cricket, at least if by that, one means once a month, hah.  It's power as an oddity on the shelf for me is strong.  The more I watch, the more I learn to look for this or that in particular and focus just on that facet.  How sometimes hits just keep coming and cats are running all over the pitch.  Then in this one I watched today, it was dink, dank, dernk.  I still watched it, though.  It was fascinating.  The entirity of it is too much.