Yesterday I began my 2011 cricket season for Robertsbridge CC - somehow I managed to get fairly good figures, despite not bowling - but for a brief and unsuccessful nets session a fortnight previously - since September 2010 (4 Overs, 1 Maiden, 2 for 10 - if anyone cares)
During this monumental return to the sport, one thought bounded into my mind and simultaneously evoked great national pride and a realisation of worrying social image. The fact that the strange sport of village cricket itself is such a nationwide hit is thanks to the inherently Englishness of our people. I have played in several teams around my area, and you invariably meet good decent people playing cricket who are up for a laugh and a drink whilst still remembering, upholding and honouring the countless wordy, confusing and sometimes ridiculous rules of the sport, as well as adhering to many traditions and habits of cricketers.
It was one of these habits that brought this worry into my mind. Anyone who's ever been near a cricket ground will recognise the customary rubbing-of-the-cricket-ball-on-the-trousers trick, in order to shine one side of the ball. As the ball was being ferried around the players, on its way to me, to be bowled. It reached a man who took the ball, and with a menacing glint in his eye, he gently meandered the ball sinisterly across his groin one or two times and then allowed the ball to continue its path back to me.
Now, if in any other social situation someone were to rub something on their genitals and then present you with it, hoping for approval, you'd have them locked up in a padded cell. Yet in this fantastic sport, we appraise this act and indulge in rubbing this same ball on our own genitals! (Note: I tend to use the back of my thigh for this act).
I'll keep this blog to just this quick thought, and I'll hope to be posted another up again soon.
I'm off to enjoy yet more sun.
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