Ashton Agar - well batted sir!

[Baggy]

Australia have a new hero. This test match has more twists and turns than a twisty turny thing! England need big scores from Pieterson and Cook.

[xbrit]

I liked one of the comments on the BBC site "Anderson should have saved the ball he got Clarke with for Agar".
He looks like he should be pushed up the order, showed excellent technique and composure for such a young man in his first Test and even more so being an Ashes series.

[jeep00]

Some day I will watch cricket long enough to understand it. But they do not televise it here in the states, or I never see it. Australian Rules Football is the best damn contact sport I have ever seen.

[Plawranc]

He played absolutely magnificently. It is the single greatest number 11 performance in the history of professional cricket.

[eagl]

He played absolutely magnificently. It is the single greatest number 11 performance in the history of professional cricket.

And there is the problem.  You're using "English" words, but arranged in an order that make no sense to anyone who isn't a Brit or Aussie.  It sounds a bit like a sesame street skit, with the number 11 dancing about and doing tricks.  He's a number 11, and how number 11 performs is apparently so important that one person, acting as this number 11, can play in such a fashion that the world will take notice and call his antics "magnificent"?

It's hard for an American to intentionally come up with an equally obscure Americanism...  When someone says a pitcher pitched a no-hitter in baseball, are brits and aussies confused about what that means?  American's can't even figure out what a "test" is, because there is apparently no comparison to anything even remotely familiar to us.  Is it an inning, or a game?  I've been told it's both and neither, more like a set or a match in tennis, but still not quite the same somehow.  It's like describing a rainbow to an earthworm.  Maybe it IS the neatest thing since deep fried wonderbread and halved onions for breakfast, but it simply doesn't register in the brain as a "thing".

Of course, there are also a lot of Americans who watch rugby and wonder why whoever gets the ball doesn't just kick it over the line instead of running around trying to get everyone to jump on him, even when he could just give it a little kick which scores a point.  Sometimes.  The way points are scored in American football don't really make sense, but you can explain it in a few minutes using small words, and it sounds way more complicated than it really is so it doesn't take much effort to figure it out (and subsequently make fun of it as yet another backwards colonial hobby).

Regarding fried bread and onions...  My wife went to a bed and breakfast near Bath on a little trip one weekend, and for breakfast she was offered a plate with a piece of bread that had apparently been dunked in boiling lard, and half of a raw onion.  Not wanting to offend her host she sort of sat there wondering how to explain her lack of appetite, when she saw one of the other houseguests take a big bite of the onion like it was an apple.  She mustered up the courage to ask what it tasted like, and she was told it was sweet.  So she tried it, and yea it was like a very very very sweet and mild onion.  So she ate that.  She wasn't able to force down the fried toast though, even when she was offered some jam to spread on it.  The bread was nice and fluffy before it had been murdered so it was completely soaked in nearly tasteless lard, while the bread itself had become toasted and crispy.  So it was like a crispy piece of foam soaked in liquid lard.  Even a sweet onion and jam wasn't enough to make that edible, and she had to pretend she nibbled on a snack from her luggage or something equally untrue in order to try to not offend an entire nation.

I think the hostess knew, anyhow.  She didn't seem to mind, since I think many brits expect us colonials to be a bit backwards and thereby tolerate some of our quirks in good humour.

[xbrit]

Some day I will watch cricket long enough to understand it. But they do not televise it here in the states, or I never see it. Australian Rules Football is the best damn contact sport I have ever seen.

If you want to take a look at it here is a streaming site that covers most important games. You have to remember though that the present game between Australia and England is taking place in England so there is a 5 hour(from est) time difference.
http://www.cricket-365.tv/live-cricket-streamings-2.html

[xbrit]

I lived in UK most of my life Eagl and never saw the fried bread and onions? Must be something just done in that area.
Basically what the story was, there was a new player for Australia, a nineteen year old, playing in a huge game between the two oldest rivals. So even with the pressure of his team being in a really bad position when he came out onto the field, he played with a maturity beyond his years and changed the face of the game,
You just don't know how hard that was, a Brit(even an Ex Brit) being nice about an Australian player.

[Plawranc]

Well that came out of nowhere Eagl.

You are right about our attitudes though. In Australia and England we use lots of slang whereas in the USA there seems to be very little. Its a quirky thing that the USA considered to be "backwards" is actually far more particular about the use of language and its pronunciation than the nation in which the language originated. I use quite a bit of slang in regards to American concepts. My employer for example is an American company (McDonalds Australia, I'm part time study, gotta work somewhere) and we call McDonald's "Macca's". I know the slang in the states for it is "MickyD's" but I hardly hear it used. The same goes for Burger King which is named something different here "Hungry Jacks" and its name is "HJ's".

Overall I think it comes down to the fact that in the USA there is very little internationalism as such, rather a list of "places that aren't America". All your media, books, politics and especially your education system, almost totally focus on the USA. So that when average American's are exposed to a foreign culture it is almost akin to visiting an alien planet. I have had many American's both young and old wonder how my English was so good considering I was from a foreign nation that wasn't England, Canada or America. I've also been greeted with surprise when I mention that my dad works for Coca Cola and I work for McDonald's and that in his youth dad worked for KFC, with the question "You actually have those in Australia?". I even got asked once if we hunted Koala Bears and if they were dangerous. And I even got asked if Kangaroos were akin to Raccoon's.

However in Australia and indeed the rest of the world. Due to WW2, the Cold War and Globalization. The entire planet is literally saturated with American culture. Almost all the world's popular culture is based in the United States (Music, film, Modern History, TV, Celebrities, Politics). So all of us have at least an understanding of the US psyche, and, people like me who have met alot of Americans through this game in particular as well as other online sources, have an even deeper understanding.   

Compared to European nations, the USA is very young and has only recently appeared in humanity's history. And yet in that short time it is the single greatest nation on Earth. However it is still a work in progress. It is not a view of backwardness as such, more a case of "you're still young and have much to learn". Overconfident, enthusiastic, idealistic and overall the nicest people and indeed the finest people I've met.

Cricket I suppose is just one of those things that no one other than commonwealth people would understand, its like Australian Football, no one but us gets it. Yet American sports are played all around the world. I play American Football, my friends play Basketball, I have one co-worker who plays baseball.

[JimmyC]

If you want to take a look at it here is a streaming site that covers most important games. You have to remember though that the present game between Australia and England is taking place in England so there is a 5 hour(from est) time difference.
http://www.cricket-365.tv/live-cricket-streamings-2.html

Thanks for the link
Settling in for a night of cricket as Pom in kiwiland.
Cheers


Ps for eagle old bean, this should clear it up for you
The Rules 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 thats 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 have 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!

[eagl]

I lived in UK most of my life Eagl and never saw the fried bread and onions? Must be something just done in that area.
Basically what the story was, there was a new player for Australia, a nineteen year old, playing in a huge game between the two oldest rivals. So even with the pressure of his team being in a really bad position when he came out onto the field, he played with a maturity beyond his years and changed the face of the game,
You just don't know how hard that was, a Brit(even an Ex Brit) being nice about an Australian player.

Ah.  Thx for the big picture explanation

JimmyC, that's actually the most coherent explanation of cricket I've ever read.   

[Baggy]

What a cracking match!

Australia all out for 296, 14 runs short of the target - bad luck you Aussies, I thought the last pair were going to chase those runs down.

A riveting five days of Test cricket. The concentration and application required for a 5 day test is astounding - and that's just from the supporters!

One Test down, four to go, really looking forward to the next one at Lords on Thursday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/23302781

For those who don't know, a Test match is one of a Series of matches played over a couple of months. A Test Series comprises of three to five matches. The team who wins the most Tests wins the Series. An 'Ashes' series -  always played between England and Australia is really the pinnacle of Test cricket.

[xbrit]

I missed the final day, too early for me with the six hour time difference. Sounds like a great finish, the momentum was going with both teams at various times during the game making an interesting game and well worth watching.
Looking forward to Thursday I don't have to be in work until late so I should manage to watch a lot of the play.

[LCADolby]

Come on England!

 

[Baggy]

It was nail biting stuff, the last pair put on a stand of 60 plus runs!

[Plawranc]

Argggh It was close.

Oh well.

Next game we shall see!

( smug cause as a dual citizen I win anyway )