Commentary

What's so special about cricket ?

By KAVELLE ANGLIN-CHRISTIE, Staff Reporter

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

(Albert Einstein)

IN RECENT WEEKS, I have been talking to some of my co-workers about sports in general and cricket in particular. They think it's the world, while I think it's the most boring game to grace the land since rock-skipping.

I mean, where's the joy in watching people do the same thing for, not one, or two hours, but up to eight everyday! A man runs with a ball and bowls it, and another tries to bat it, and I have no idea what the others seem to do.

'Extra-special' recently explained to me in his most tender way, that the 'stick thingies' (as I call them) are actually known as wickets. Oh the beauty of knowledge ­ yet that didn't seem to make the game any more interesting to me. As a matter of fact, after the explanation, I was even more convinced that there was no point to the game. He, of course, concluded that was because I went to that all-girls-dressed-in-white Catholic school on Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew. Oh well...

As far as cricket goes, I think the only interesting thing that has happened is with regards to the recent hullabaloo about the contracts ­ yes people, the news aspect.

You know, every time I attempt to watch cricket or imagine attending a match I feel as if I am going insane. I start to hear voices, telling me that I'm going to pass out from the heat; that the dust is going to cause my asthma to act up, and finally, drives me crazy. I mean, all this from sitting in front of my television and watching. My Lord, what would happen if I went? As Joseph Conrad once wrote: 'The horror! The horror!"

My co-workers, like 'extra', are of the opinion that it was because I attended that school that I have no interest in sports. I had to point out to the weird bunch that my old school offered every sport they can imagine, so they were obviously wrong.

These people just don't understand me, and it has reached the point that I am not even included in their sports day activities ­ not that I mind though, because the whole sun thing, just doesn't do much to motivate me.

The captain of my house once asked me to play table tennis in the presence of one of my co-workers, and he. of course. laughed me to scorn. The captain asked why the guy was laughing and I had to break it to him, that I don't play sports ­ at all. Besides, I play table tennis like it's tennis. So he stopped asking me to contribute to the house's points, but after wearing him down, he decided to let me be a points-keeper, or whatever, on sports day.

Yes, C., Extra-special, and all you other weirdos captivated by cricket, you will read this and say I don't know what I am missing out on by not watching cricket, football, tennis, rock-climbing, lizard hunting, etc., but you know what, I would be more content playing a tedious game of rock-skipping.

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