London - Day 13

Date: August 31st, 2009
Distance: None
Country: England

Woke up and Jay made us some tea. I can really understand why the drink is so popular here. It feels good on a nice cool morning. Some of his mates were getting together to play cricket. So we got in to his car to pick a few more people up. Actually, I tried to get in the right side first. Wrong side.

From there it was over to pick up James, his brother Sam and Sharief. So we had a full car. Then it was off to Wimbledon. Again there are no straight line in the city, but we did get there.

Now cricket is a strange game. Yes, there are similarities to baseball. Each sport has a bat and is thrown a ball to hit. After a hit the batters run. That is pretty much where the similarities end though. Cricket has 11 men to a team. All of the batters from the first team go, then all the batters from the second team go. End of game.

As a batter your bat is really your lifeline. You can touch it behind the crease (your safe area) to keep from getting out. Dropping you bat after a hit (like I did my first time) is considered bad form and also very funny. You are trying to defend the wicket, if the bowler hits it you are out. So the stance is very strange if you are used to baseball. So my first time up at cricket I scored no runs.

Fielding is a little easier. You don't have gloves like in baseball. Plus the field is open, there is no foul line. So the ball can go anywhere. But I felt like I did pretty well getting the ball and keeping the batsmen from scoring runs. Our team one which felt pretty good. Also, playing cricket on a beautiful London day is something else I can cross off my list. Thanks to all the players, it was a real blast. Thanks to Steve for helping explain the rules.

-Dravis