Twenty/20 Feature Cricket Match

This past Sunday there was a Feature Cricket match. 20/20 is a type of game for Cricket, I have figured out. Cricket can last a loong time, like 3 days for one game (Those are called Tests). But to make it manageable and in one day, the SDC has a 20/20 Cricket tournament within the parish, that by the end of June becomes inter-parish matches. This means there are 20 overs given per team. Each team gets 6 official balls for one over. A ball is a throw from the bowler. The bowler is the guy who swings his arm like a windmill.

 There are also two batsmen on the clay strip. So when the bowler throws the ball there is a batsman on his side and the two batsman run back and forth across the white lines that are in front of the wickets (those 3 stick things on each end of the clay rectangle strip). Are you still following me!? Haha, if you don't, you have to watch about 30 minutes of the game after reading this. I say 30 minutes, because like I said, its a long game. Each time the batsman who hit the ball into the field runs past the white line its one point. There are two of them because if they run to the same side as the bowler they're not moving from that side to show how many points they've gotten. So the balls and the overs are really dependent on the bowler. Not so on the batsman. Which in baseball, it seems more dependent on the batter than the pitcher. whew!

So! I went to Ballard's Valley, St. Bess at 7:30 with the rest of the SDC staff and we met the main SDC office staff all the way from Kingston. The whole lot of us began preparing the field and the sitting area for the spectators and VIP (Members of Parliament (MP) and sponsors). We set up until about 10. By ten, the first two teams began to play. They game lasted until 2! Then the next teams started a little after. Unfortunately, one team did not show and forfeited. This was no good because apparently this team would have brought out more spectators. Instead, there was a friendly match until 5pm. After the match we had to break down all the work we had made for the Feature match and went home! I was there for about 10 hours! I had 2 cups of coffee that day, I was awake still by 7pm that night, but physically pooped!

By the way, this is how I've understood it. This game was the first time I've EVER seen a Cricket match. Like, ever paid attention to one. I've known about Cricket since middle school, but I never cared about it because the name sounds like an insect and without explanation the game looked really confusing. And now that I've seen it, the game does have the name of an insect and its less confusing. :)