Cricket!
I played my first cricket game last Saturday. I have been in e-mail contact with the head of the Taiwan Southerns Cricket Club (TSCC), which is mainly Kaohsiung and Pingtung players with a few from Tainan. I finally decided to take up his long-standing offer to come out to a game. I've been wanting to play for a while and decided it was time to act.
Upon arrival I got a jersey, a quick run down of the rules and practice batting, bowling and fielding.
Our opponent was the Tainan branch of the Taiwan Indian Cricket League. Both they and the TSCC teams had a few new people and 4-5 solid veterans who could play all aspects of the game well.
The game was set at 25 overs max per team. Our team was batting first and I was pretty near the bottom of the order, naturally. I was able to hit the ball pretty well, but I still have a bad habit from baseball of trying to run whenever I made contact. That was OK for the first hit I had, but got me out the second time. So once I mentally adjust to the rules I may be a decent batsman.
When we switched to fielding, I was standing at about the equivalent of the halfway mark between third base and left field. Man, did I do a lot of running. Much more than I had anticipated. I also played closer in to the batter when we were trying to pressure him, as well as the backup to our wicket keeper. The captain can move people around all the time and position them anywhere he wants, with the limitation of keeping at least 3 fielders "in catching position" (in the 'infield').
After our good bowlers had all bowled their maximum five overs, I was called in and asked to close the game (you can tell we really were out of options). We were behind only one run, but still had several overs to go, making the outcome virtually certain. I threw a wide bowl on my first attempt, which ended the game immediately. We lost.
Besides that humiliating close to the game, I had a lot of fun. Everyone was nice and we went for a beer and dinner afterward that included both teams. The game took us about 4.5 hours, which was some sort of record fast game according to our ump.
Our team awards a "potty award" for the worst play of the game, and forces the "winner" to drink a beer out of a plastic child's toilet they've had since 1999. We also gave the Indian team our Pingtung Cup Trophy. We get a chance to win it back in July.
Probably the funniest part of the game was the Indian wicket keeper who loved to yell "BOWLING" after an on target bowl. He often followed it up with a "VERY GOOD BOWLING," which I thought he should have just said in the first place.
It was a great experience and I'll surely be playing again. The big tournamnet is this weekend in Taichung (The Formosa cup; games this weekend at 台中市惠中路與向上路口 ), but I can't afford the time loss. Will have to wait a couple weeks for my next game. That's OK, because I'm pretty sore.
Here's the schedule for the Formosa Cup in Taichung:
2 comments:
:) Glad you enjoyed your first game. Shame we won't see you this weekend. I'm from the Formosa team. I found your blog comment because I have a google search automated to notify me of any new instances for "cricket taiwan". Congratulations :)
Congrats
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