CANADIAN CRICKET

Over the past five days I have been avidly watching the progress of the Second Cricket Test, Australia v West Indies from Adelaide. A draw seemed a fair result. To someone not familiar with the noble game of cricket playing a game for five days, for six hours a day and then at the end of that time not getting a result would appear a little bizarre. But to those of us who grew up with the game, this is one of crickets attractions.

What other game can you have such quaint terminology as: leg before wicket, silly mid on, square leg, a maiden over or silly point.....well the list goes on and on.

To an Australian the dulcet tones of Richie Benaud signals summer as surely as cicada's blaring from a eucalyptus tree. For those who may not be aware, Richie is Australia's equivalent of Howard Cossell.

Thinking of cricket reminded me of a strange encounter I had about a month into my stay here in Canada.

I was driving into OK Falls and off in the distance I spied something that looked familiar. It couldn't be I thought to myself. No it couldn't be not here in OK Falls, British Columbia. I stopped the vehicle and said to my companion that that strip of green over yonder in the local park looks like a cricket pitch.

"A cricket what?" she answered with a vague look on her face.

"It looks like a cricket pitch. And look at either end there's a set of stumps!" Now she really thought I had lost it. Talk of crickets, stumps and pitches tends to do that with sweet Canadian gals.

I knew an explanation wouldn't suffice so I said lets drive to the park and have a look. She was only too happy to comply with the request of this weird Australian.

We pulled up at the park and to my amazement there were the two opening batsman going out to the pitch to take guard. One team were dressed in blue one-day garb and the other in yellow.

A cricket match was about to be played here in Okanagan Falls, population of around 1000. Go figure!

It turns out that the two teams were made up exclusively of expatriates from the sub-continent and a thriving competition is conducted in and around the Okanagan Valley.

So here I was sitting in my car watching a cricket match in OK Falls, trying to explain the convoluted rules to my companion, whilst just a short distance away a group of boys were playing an impromptu game of baseball.

Cricket being played was the last thing I expected to see here in rural Canada. Life is strange!