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If you have never seen the object at the top of the page you have not spent much time watching murder most foul taking place in the English Country side courtesy of BBC or PBS the investigation of which is often interrupted by that most English of all games: Cricket. You might not recognize that the young gentleman on the left is a bowler while the one on the right is a batsman who could be defending a "sticky wicket".
If you have not been raised with the game that is now played in every country where the sun never set on the British Empire, it will be almost impossible to fully understand. I know this because of an extensive exchange of emails involving the finer points of baseball vs. cricket. He could probably tell you quite a bit about baseball while I, on the other hand, know that some form of cricket has been played since 1300 and tea will be served at 4:00 p.m.
I will prove this to you by posting just a bit of the article from Wikipedia
During the play of a cricket match, two members of the batting team are on the field, while their team-mates wait off the field. Those two players are the current batsmen. Each batsman stands near one of the two wickets at either end of the cricket pitch near the centre of the ground.
The two batsmen have different roles: The striker stands in front of the wicket nearest him and attempts to defend it from balls bowled by the opposing bowler from the other wicket. The non-striker stands inactive near the bowler's wicket.
Got that?
If you have the time, do at least take a look at the Wikapedia page as the pictures of the virtually incomprehensible are wonderful, and the history is fascinating and has often involved major disputes between devotees that have risen to the level of diplomatic outrage almost leading to the severing of governmental relations.
Now test matches in Cricket are known for their length. In researching this article, I found another delightful research website called The longest list of the longest stuff at the longest domain name at Long Last to find out that the longest recorded test match was between England and South Africa which began on March 03, 1939 and continued till March 14, 1939, although they did not play on the 5th, 11th or 12th. During this time they played a total of 43 hours and 16 minutes, finally calling the game a draw at 1,981 runs because the English had to take a ship home.
Arthur Salway has written a humorous poem about cricket called The English Game. Enjoy and then if you have never seen it, rent a wonderful movie called Hope and Glory about World War II through the eyes of a child with a minor theme of him learning how to throw a "googlie" that is unhittable by a cricket bat before his father comes home.
