Cricket for dummies

Cricket is more than a game. When you consider that it involves an afternoon of blood, sweat, toil, cups of milky tea, cherry bakewells, mockery, beer, hilarious observations about members of the opposing team and discussing who has been the day's biggest bellend, I think you'll agree that it more than captures the existential essence of the human condition.
But to people not steeped in its noble traditions, it can look very much like 22 massive idiots wasting a perfectly good afternoon retrieving a red sphere from surrounding gardens, randomly yelling and deliberately putting themselves into a position that seems to highlight to all and sundry that they cannot, in fact, play the game they're actually playing.
How wrong they are. How very, very wrong.
To these people I plead "Allow me to shed light where there is none and probably none is wanted." To which they reply. "No thanks." Bastards.
Anyway I present to you some pictures from a recent game and underneath you'll see a short description of what is going on, what are the thoughts that are going through the tiny minds of these mighty ICC gladiators.

 Fig 1. The stance.

This is me preparing to face a delivery. Any second now some 6ft, lanky, 18 year old arsehole, high on testosterone and low on IQ is going to hurl the ball at me as fast and dangerously as he can. What is going through my tiny mind is. "I wonder if Phil's remembered to buy Cherry Bakewells for tea."

Fig. 2. The Swish Fuck

This is me executing a cricket shot invented by me at Ightham Cricket Club some 370 years ago, entitled the "Swish Fuck."  You aim an almighty swish at it, miss the fucker and then shout "Fuck!" From this we get, you guessed it, Swish Fuck. In my tiny mind I'm thinking "Fuck I could have fucking hit that if I hadn't been thinking about fucking cake!" In this picture the ball has probably sailed harmlessly to the wicket keeper or, if I'm lucky, accidentally hit the top edge of my bat and gone for 6 behind me.

Fig 3. The comfort easement.

This is Dave executing a textbook comfort easment. Along with shutting the eyes, sounding as if you have a single goddam clue about what you're doing and thinking the square leg umpire is another fielder, this is an essential part of the batsman's armoury. Basically his wedding tackle is contained within what amounts to a small plastic greenhouse, which is itself contained in a pair of tight plastic trousers and he's running around in temperatures that can exceed 22 degrees Centiheit on a good day. That's right. He's got a sweat on in the top paddock. As you can imagine the microclimate inside this region is getting pretty uncomfortable. Solution? A sneaky comfort easement.And this is a classic of the genre. Left leg raised, balance maintained with bat, pretend to be looking at a stick or something, quick adjustment and then back to the batting. What's going through his tiny mind is "Oooooooooooooooh yes. That's better."

Fig 4. Insect awareness

You need to be looking at the batsmen here. They're the ones carrying the bats and displaying wonderful insect awareness. Moodos, nearest the camera, has spotted a bee on his right boot and is attempting to squash it. Don't worry animal lovers, he was trying to hit it with his bat so he probably got nowhere near it. What's going through his tiny mind is "I could really do with a beer." That's what's always going through his tiny mind. Giles furthest from camera has been caught at exactly the point of becoming aware of a different bee. As you can see his arms are raised in alarm. He's thinking "Aaaaaaaaaggggghhh what the fuck is that? Hang on...relax everyone...it's only a bee."