Posted by You know, with all the rain and stuff? If you’re actually at the ground, the escapism can continue regardless of whether there’s any play or not. But what about those of us more dependent on the cricket itself for such a thing?
Basking in the drizzle at the Oval, spectators can revel in their collective stoicism. They are unencumbered by the guilt that arises alongside the nagging feeling that you should be doing something else. The day has already been set aside and in many ways the cessation of play frees them from their one remaining obligation.
They take turns buying their maximum permissible order of four pints and they relax. They chat unhurriedly, about whatever-the-hell lurches into their half-cut consciousness.
Beyond the ground, people make great efforts to follow the cricket and rain delays sentence them to that most horrific activity known as “doing stuff”. As often as not, the stuff to be done is stuff you’re in some way obliged to do as well, which is of course the worst stuff of all to have to do.
People always talk about the paying public being the ones who are worst affected when a cricket match is rained off, but there are unseen, unpaying millions who suffer way, way more than them.
For those on the county cricket liveblog, we generally resort to dreadful cricket puns, with weather (Chris Gayle, Alex Hales, Arafat Sunny) being arguably too much so at this point. We’ve also done GoT (Mitchell Stark), Pokémon (VVS Snorlaxman), and even PPI (NEoin-no-fee Morgan) themed pun sprints, with the aim being to come up with an XI at the end of it all.
Royalty-themed elevens, for the Kingdom? Ashwell Prince springs to mind.
Reon King
Ben Reign
Jason Roy-al
Can’t compete with that cleverness but there is cricket on Dave from 1pm today.
Can’t wait to find out who will win the 2005 Ashes!
There was a man called Eskinazi,
Who one day at Lord’s did go crazy.
Scored 106 showing off all his tricks,
But not going on was quite lazy.
Nick Gubbins, his friend, he did better,
Though the pitch could hardly have been fletter.
Scored 201, and might not have been done;
We’ll never know now ’cause it’s wetter.
Between them, they did stop Alviro
From looking a bit of a hero.
But even with rain, we can’t really complain:
The odds of a vict’ry were zero.
This post I could quickly get lost in,
But my sanity’s what it is costin’.
So I’ll stop now with these, after trying to squeeze
In a reference to Ian Austin.
Bravo. And the perfect finish.
I believe the appropriate term is ‘chapeau’.
Magnificent work, sir.
I was going to make a lame joke along the lines of ‘Super Series? You mean Super Sopper Series…’ and then read this.
Imagine my shame.
There’s no way I’d ever want to stop people from making terrible jokes. See above.