The Cricket

I can’t remember if I’ve gone off about The Cricket before, as during the past two years I’ve generally tried to remain somewhat “culturally sensitive”. But no more! Not since the ICC World 20/20 Cricket Tournament has hijacked regularly scheduled programming on SABC 3, everyday, for the past TWO weeks.

First of all, its never just referred to as Cricket – always as “THE Cricket”. This is something that people here do when talking about all sports (THE Rugby and THE Soccer), and I’ve had enough.

Second, Cricket is unnecessarily long – one game lasts 4 hours! And it’s not like much even happens in those four hours, making it also an extremely boring sport to watch. At least with baseball games (which can also be unnecessarily long and boring) there are fun songs in the middle when things get slow, and of course the 7th inning stretch. Not so with Cricket – when they need a break the go out for tea. TEA!

Third, they wear sweater vests as part of their uniforms.

Fourth, a tournament drags on for two weeks and will be televised on SABC 3 for that entire time – and they show all the games, not just the games in which SA’s playing. I guess I can’t really blame the “sport” of Cricket for this since it’s actually SABC that decides what goes on the air. But come on, during prime time?