What drew you to cricket and why?

I was always fascinated by scorecards on teletext – I remember annoying the family for years by turning on Ceefax during important moments in television. My first real memory of watching cricket, and I was already into it by this point, was aged 10, in my “aunt and uncle”’s caravan while on holiday. A can of Appletise in my hand (a rare treat), I bemused my parents by watching the cricket while everyone else went on a walk in the bright sunshine. I remember England having a good day, reaching 200+ for 2 at one point. I think it was late summer, but I don’t remember the opponents.

There’ve been several triggers.

The first was the wild celebrations at home on the night of 25th June 1983. I was blissfully asleep and I woke up suddenly to my father and uncles screaming that we’d won the World Cup. At that point, I was eight years old without a clue of what they were rambling about around midnight.

The second trigger was getting to watch a few games of the 1985 World Championship of Cricket. Coloured clothing, day-night games, white ball etc. looked really nice!

The third trigger was when I went to watch one of the days of the India-Pakistan test at Madras in the 1986-87 series with my father. If I remember right, I distinctly remember Azhar taking a superb catch at gully. I must have gone on the last day of the game.

The last straw was the tied test in the same season. A few weeks before that, I’d chanced upon a book in a nearby library about the Brisbane tie and it was fascinating reading and even more fascinating that a game could end the way it did. I was well and truly hooked after the Madras tie!

As an aside, my father and I had booked tickets to go on the final day of the India-West Indies test at Chepauk in 1988. We needn’t have bothered. Hirwani ensured that the game was up on day four!

I am from India, so been watching it since i was small, hardly missed an india match when it comes on tv.

I remember watching the 92 worldcup and the jadeja catch at third man, thats one of the early cricket moments of my life.

Well, I first started watching cricket relatively recently, during the 2003 (I think..?) South Africa tour in England.

What drew me was the drawn out tension and so on, compared to say, football which is all over very quickly.

I learnt at my father’s side. Junior membership at Essex (watching Pont put a six through the pavilion window) and the summer test series on TV during the summer holidays with TMS giving the commentary. When I started work and couldn’t watch cricket on the TV things eased off a bit, but a couple of years ago I joined a county again and just loved the sheer slowness of the game which builds such intense pressure. And then the Ashes. Ahh, the ashes and I now have a clutch of sons into cricket too. So this summer one adult member and three junior members will be off to Worcestershire (I moved from Essex) and it’ll all start again for my boys. I hope.

I didnt start watching cricket till i was 20 years old. I thought the game was too complicated. Luckily for me, I had a good friend who was willing to explain all the finer points of the game.

I learnt about test cricket watching South Africa play England in England. This was the controversial series where Umpire Javed Akhtar gave some questionable decisions against South Africa.
I remember watching all the county games during that series.
Ive been following England closely ever since.

Like Stu, it was somethign that’s always been there. My father was just as serious a cricket nut as I am, so it might be hard-wired into my DNA for all I know.

Being American, I didn’t get much exposure to cricket. I knew of it’s existence, but didn’t know any details, other than the fact that matches could last a long time.

At the age of 32, I travelled for a 3-week whirlwind tour of Australia (sort of a dream vacaction after nearly a decade without even having a passport – I’d just been laid off and decided I needed to go for it). I had a blast everywhere I went, trying whatever fun stuff was going on, and when I was in Adelaide on a bus from the airport to my hotel a lady asked me if I was in town for the cricket. I, of course, had no idea there was a cricket match in town, but insted of saying “no” I asked questions like “Won’t I have trouble understanding what’s going on?” and “Where is it?”. It was at the Adelaide Oval, of course, a modest walk across the Torrens River from my hotel. I walked over, bought a ticket, and watched Justin Langer hit a century against South Africa. I was a bit clueless at first, but afterwards I found some web sites which explained the rules.

That day is chronicled, with photos, here: http://www.bluepoof.com/pics/alan/oztrip/day10.html

When I got back to California I found a tennisball cricket league team in my area and joined them to learn the sport in depth by playing it, and I also, until I found a new job, practiced with a regular leather-ball cricket team in my area.

This is a nice coincidence, because I just posted on my cricket blog about how the late J. Paul Getty, another American (who owned Wisden and funded a stand at Lords) was introduced to the game by none other than Mick Jagger:
http://randomcricketthoughts.blogspot.com/

p.s. Despite my introduction being a one-dayer, I prefer the “longer form” of the game now, probably due to several teenage summers spent watching Lancs County Championship games.

Like so many others, cricket was just always there in my childhood, TV or radio. 1975 was my big breakthrough year when my home side Leicestershire won the County Championship and I met David Gower for the first time. I had no TV when I went to university so a radio was never far away. I celebrated the 1981 Headingley win in the Manchester Uni Students Union Bar. After studies, I moved to Italy and had babies. Again, terminal radio addiction, even spent an afternoon on top of a wardrobe where the reception was best. Imagine, for 20 years I saw virtually no live cricket at all! My real cricketing life began in 2000 after moving to Germany – and getting Internet, discovering a cricket League and getting involved. Now there is not one single day where I am not involved in cricket and I LOVE it!

Exam revision – cricket on TV was the perfect accompaniment/distraction. Over a few summers, it eventually began to sink in what was actually going on in the game, and I gradually started to get more interested… like Will it was the Ashes that really started me off, I remember vividly Hussain and Thorpe’s hundreds in the Edgbaston Test in 1997, and when I found myself listening to every minute of the West Indies tour on TMS, there was no turning back! I enjoy watching most sports, but what I love most is the human aspect of them, and for this cricket surpasses all others – the incredibly fine balance between team and individual, plus how the game and the tension evolve over the five days makes it a fascinating watch.

Have to add a quick addendum to my last post. In the 60’s and 70’s , there weren’t the chances to play for girls that there are now, but anyway I was always fascinated by the score and wanted to be a scorer. I have scored games from radio, TV, Internet and live-coverage DVDs, even from leaning out of a hotel window with a pair of binoculars and a view of Lords last summer when I couldn’t get a ticket. All my friends and family – even my cricketers, think I am mad. This may even be true. During the Ashes, I had my radio with me at the grounds, and when the lads would ask, “What’s the score then, Wraye?” I would growl, “Which one?” Nuts, yes?

Since moving to Germany, with 2 grown girls, I have my own personal heaven of scoring live cricket practically every weekend between April and September.

Will, I have a question.

This post has been really fascinating and great fun to join in. You now have our limericks, the online KP Worship Society, our backgrounds …

Question is: when does your first book come out?

Im not quite sure how i got into cricket but my first memory is playing ‘tape ball’ cricket in the corridor of the block of flats i lived in. this was when I was about 4 when i lived in Bahrain (in the middle-east) and me and my brother used to go round the whole block of flats getting all the kids to come down to the corridor on our level to play cricket. It was amazing as we had a whole host of cultures playing, me being sri lankan, most being indian, pakistani, a couple of english boys and 3 south african brothers. I wasn’t really into watching it then but a couple of years later in 1996, i remember me and my dad went round a friends house to watch the final between SL and AUS, and SL WON!! WOOOO truly amazing day, we celebrated for many days!

We then moved to england when i was about 9, and me, my brother and my dad went on the tour of Lords. This was a truly amazing day and opened my eyes into the world of cricket. Ive wanted to be a cricketer ever since, and here i am at 16… playing for my county age group team. Hopefully some day i’ll make it to play for England

Great topic by the way

My dad and several of my uncles played cricket. So, it was the natural thing to do. We even played indoor/one-bounce cricket during get-togethers. Lots of warm memories — street, school, college, university and club cricket. I played for 20+ years until my body quit a few years back. Wonder what all those guys I played with are up to now. It would sure be nice to visit all those places again. For many Indians of my generation, the 1983 World Cup is easily the highpoint of cricket watching and Kapil the most dedicated Indian player. Little did we realize then that it will all soon be spoilt by corruption and greed.

I was in the US Navy and took orders to the UK. I was in a bar in Cornwall (down Newquay-way, where I was stationed) and the cricket was on. It was, in fact, Lara’s 400* match. Somehow, Today at the Test became part of my daily routine. And then watching the Tests proper followed soon thereafter. Followed, of course, by constant checking of the scores on Cricinfo.

I fell quick and I fell hard and looking back, I can’t put my finger on a specific instant that I fell in love with this quirky, beautiful game, but I did.

My time is now being spent desperately trying to find some place in Tennessee that will be showing England in India this spring.

My earlest memory of listening to cricket broadcast was the test betweem India and England at Madras in 81-82 (actually Jan 82)when Vishwanath scored 222 and Yashpal Sharma scored 140(I was visiting my grand parents place in January 82).Later at the end of hte year India toured Pakistan for sic tests as and we had live cricket beamed to our homes in Hyderabad.More than mildly interested I followed the subsequent India cricket tour to West Indies in 1983 and ofcourse a few months later 1983 World Cup happened.A cricket fanatic was born 22 years ago!!!

I learnt to play cricket at primary school in Zimbabwe, where I lived for three years (I’m English: my dad’s a journalist). We moved there when I was nine, and before that I’d been to International Schools in Moscow and Paris, whilst neither of my parents was very interested in cricket, so that was my first exposure to the game. “Learnt to play” is perhaps top strong a phrase: I was hopeless even at that age, and spent most of my time as a specialist deep fine leg. Looking back on it what was really significant was that this was a State Primary School, which before 1980 had no black kids at all as it was in a white suburb. When I arrived in 1987 about a third of the pupils were black, with the proportion increasing all the time, and we all played together. That’s how the game was changing at the grassroots in that unhappy country, before Chingoka, Bvute et al screwed it all up. At school in the U.K. I rapidly rose to be First XI scorer, it having been rapidly established that I had no aptitude whatsoever for actually playing the game. I went to a lot of Club and School matches, but I took no interest in International Cricket at all until I went to India during my Gap Year in ‘97. There I found that the boys at the school I was teaching at expected me to know all about the England team (they even knew the names and averages of all the Zimbabwean players) whilst on trains talking about cricket was usually the only way of sustaining a conversation beyond the usual ‘What is your good name’? I started going to Test Matches not long after, and last year joined Kent CCC and now waste my time watching Championship matches in the summer, so I suppose all hope is lost.

[...] I declared that it’d be a tie, having only come across that term a few weeks earlier while reading a book about the 1960 tie at Brisbane. I mean, I obviously wanted India to win. But I reckoned it’d be even more fascinating if it was a tie. Even now, whenever I see polls on the results of test matches, I try to go for the ‘tie’ option. I get disappointed when commentators say ‘All three results are possible’, when there’re actually four possible results – Team X wins, Team Y wins, drawn game and a tie! Like I chronicled atthis lovely thread on CoU, that tied match basically got me hooked to cricket. [...]