Fun Stuff

The Game of Cricket

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men are out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

Sir Henry Newbolt’s Vitai Lampada (1897), compares an heroic wicket stand in a cricket match to a soldier’s last stand.

There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight
Ten to make and the match to win . . .
The sand of the desert is sodden red,
Red with the wreck of the square that broke . . .
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies in the ranks:
“Play up! Play up! And play the game.”