Understanding the British: A hilarious guide from Apologising to Wimbledon

by Adam Fletcher

Cricket When foreigners encounter the curious, unfathomable sport of cricket, their usual reaction is I don’t understand it. Don’t worry, that’s normal. While I’ve never played the game, I do have a British passport, so I’m qualified to explain it. It works like this. Cricket is played by men, because women have better things to do with their time. It needs two teams of eleven men and a reserve. Each team “bats” while the other team “fields”. It’s called fielding because you stand in a field. You might think it’s called batting because you bat, but mostly you don’t bat. You pretend. Which means those who are fielding don’t really get to field. But that’s not their fault. Batsmen bat at something called a “crease”. It isn’t creased. It’s straight. A bowler “bowls” the ball, which means he throws it as fast as he can, over arm, trying to hit the batsman’s “wicket”, which is three wooden posts in the ground behind the “crease”. Ostensibly, the batsman’s job is hitting that ball. However, if he hits it, he must run to the opposite wicket to score a “run”. He can’t really run because he’s wearing so much padding and specialist equipment, because the ball is really hard, for no explainable reason. So, the batsman mostly just pretends he will bat, takes the stance of someone fully intending to hit the ball as it flies at him, feigns full commitment to run-scoring, and then, at the last moment, pulls his bat out of the way. The big tease. Since so many bowled balls aren’t hit, a s...