Don't knock it 'til you've tried it

When I first came here, I had quite the bias against cricket. Okay, I had a big bias. But this weekend, I played my first real cricket match and that's all changed.

Being desperately low on players for his normal Saturday morning cricket match, Maz called on Friday and pleaded with me -- me, a guy who's never played proper cricket in his life -- to play. After some hesitation, I realized I couldn't pass this up. Yes, there was the distinct possibility that I would horrendously embarrass myself, but how could I possibly not at least try?

Flash forward ahead to the next morning. My team's batting, I'm waiting for my turn. And I'm nervous. Nervous because I really had no idea what I was doing. Nervous because I was afraid of getting out before scoring a single run (known as a Golden Duck). Nervous because the other guys on my team were getting out far too quickly. (Although I soon realized that this was actually a good thing, as my suckage might not stand out as much.) And yes, nervous because I wasn't wearing a cup.

Finally, my turn comes and I walk out onto the pitch. I dig in in front of the wicket and all of a sudden things are moving a million miles an hour. The umpire says something to me that I don't understand, I inexplicably nod/grunt in acknowledgment, the bowler starts approaching, the guy hitting at the other end (Sean) is furiously waving for me to move closer to the wicket, the bowler's about to unleash the ball, I'm shuffling around as per Sean's directions, and the ball's heading my way. Literally. It's heading right at me. And before I know it, the ball bounces on the ground, comes straight up and hits me on the side of the throat. Faaaaaannnnnnnntastic.

Things slow down a bit from there. I do a quick check of the vitals. Seems like everything's okay. From the boundary, Leif (Sean's brother) yells, "Welcome to Australia, mate!" Everyone laughs. I nervously laugh. But my God! The boys on the other team apologize, I shake it off and we get back at it.

Next ball looks good, so I take a hack. And woefully miss. Fortunately, the ball also misses the wicket, so I'm still alive. I think I may have missed the next ball as well. But lo and behold, on one of the next few balls, I make contact, the ball gets by some fielders, and I'm off and running! I score my first ever cricket run (thus eliminating the chance of getting an embarrassing Golden Duck) and get rousing applause from the boys on the boundary. Meanwhile, the adrenaline has me literally shaking. Good stuff.

And serendipitously, illogically, amazingly, I keep at it. Sean and I stay out there for maybe ten minutes and some of my hits even go for two runs. After each over (six balls), I manage to amuse Sean as I ask him very basic questions about rules that I had never even thought to inquire about until I was out there.

Then I really start to get comfortable and take some healthy hacks. Don't connect too cleanly on anything but I keep going. And I finally get out on my hardest-hit ball of the day that a guy on the other team somehow manages to catch on the line.

My total tally for the morning was nine runs, which is far from anything to brag about. A mediocre to decent score for these guys is probably at least in the 20s or 30s. But that day, the other boys were playing like crap, and I actually managed to score the second most runs of anyone on the team. Domination, baby.

We fielded after that, and that was easy. Catch the ball on the fly if you can. Otherwise, chase it down and throw it in. Somewhat boring, actually. The only thing that kept me going was the chatter among the team that snowballed into some funny lines.

So now, despite my initial skepticism, I'm all about the cricket. Australia is playing a one day match against New Zealand next Sunday at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and I'm there. And the next time the boys need an extra hand, you better believe I'm there as well. Just need to get that cup.