As you may already know, summer in Australia is all about Beach, BBQ and cricket. Everyone here seems to follow the game. There is always a Boxing Day test cricket which starts the cricket season for everyone. 

Wikipedia defines Cricket as a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the runs scored by the batting team. A run is scored by the striking batsman hitting the ball with his bat, running to the opposite end of the pitch and touching the crease there without being dismissed. The teams switch between batting and fielding at the end of an innings. 

I think for anyone who is not into sports it might be a very boring sport which looks like men chasing a ball or trying to hit a ball. But once you know the rules and start following the rules, many people enjoy it. 

I started watching cricket in early 90’s and got hooked to it during World Cup 1996. In our house, all four of us, me, my dad, mum and brother were so into it that we scheduled our life around the games during that period. We used to eat early to make sure we got to watch the game. There were some days when we used to get up early while some nights we used to sleep late. As it was winter, it made it even harder to go to school following day. At school everyone discussed about the score and how the teams were doing. Different people supported different teams so we even argued on how the umpire was unfair and so on and so forth.

The World Cup 96 was really great. I was supporting the Sri Lankan team and it didn’t look good for them in the beginning.  I was really happy when they beat India in the Semi finals to reach the Final. They played Australia for the trophy and it was such a nerve racking game. Jayasuriya and De Silva played really well to win the game but Warne was proving to be a really good bowler.Sri Lanka won the game by 7 wickets and there were big celebrations for them.

From then I was even more hooked on the games. When I came to Australia it was good to know that there were many people who followed cricket here. The game is always in the news and there is lots of passion and support for the Australian team. A few years ago, the Aussie team was playing so well that they were winning almost every game they played. They had a great form at that time.

Right now there is a Test match going on. I am not a big fan of 5 day games as opposed to 1 day game but the game is really getting interesting. The day before Ricky Ponting made his first hundred after almost 2 years. It was really cool to see the last run he took for the century (he had to dive for it).

Also history was made by Michael Clarke making 329 not out. 

At my work there is a big TV in the lunch room where everyone runs to during their break to get the scores. Also there are lots of bets going around the office on how many runs Ponting will score, what will the final score for the Aussie team and the Indian team and many

I feel good to see people in support of sport and enjoying the games. One of these days, I plan to go and watch the game live instead of on TV.

Happy Summer if you are on my side of the world 🙂 . Enjoy cricket, the beach and the BBQ.