Monday, May 03, 2010

Rain delayed cricket on my birthday

I celebrated THE ERIK HOGSTROM BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZAPALOOZA®! today with a good book -- Barney Hoskyns' examination of LED ZEPPELIN IV -- and by listening to some CRICKET on the radio.
I listened to BBC RADIO'S TEST MATCH SPECIAL online as ENGLAND lost their opening match in the WORLD TWENTY20 limited-overs tournament to the hosts WEST INDIES in a baffling manner.

England scored 191-5 batting first in the match in GUYANA, with Eoin Morgan (55) and Luke Wright (45 not out) leading the way.

The hosts had reached 30-0 in reply when persistent rain forced a delay.

I have often compared listening to cricket on the radio to listening to a baseball game rain delay on the radio -- there is often plenty of time to spin lengthy yarns.

Can you imagine what a cricket rain delay sounds like on the radio?

I can! I heard one today.

The commentators discussed more Guyanese history than I thought possible. They discussed the weather, old cricketers and so many other topics I lost track.

The most bizarre occurrence came when play resumed, however. Cricket officials recalculated the rain-shortened run target the West Indies would need to reach to win the match -- it was only 30 more runs from 22 balls bowled.

Laughably easy!

West Indies duly reached that target (despite some valiant England fielding) and I was left shaking my head in disbelief at the seemingly unfair method use to determine the match winner.

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