Cricket in England is more than just a sport, it’s a method of irrigation.
Cricket and precipitation have become so inextricably linked that, even at the height of summer, spectators wear stout waterproof shoes and carry umbrellas and plastic macs.
Most cricket matches last at least a day and can go on for four or five, so it seems reasonable to assume that some matches will be interrupted by the weather. However, the incidence of rain at cricket matches is much greater than can be explained by chance. Indeed, the effect is so dependable that, in the event of drought, matches between the English counties may be hastily rescheduled and rain brought swiftly to the affected areas.
You should also be aware that the English regard the fact that we can’t beat them at cricket as remarkably funny. That is to say, they will remark on it and you are expected to find it funny.
I got tired of playing that game a long time ago. So now, I just look them straight in the eye and tell it like it is.
We used to play a fair amount of cricket in the US.The blockquote is an edited comment originally posted at Across the Atlantic.
The first ever international cricket match took place between the USA and Canada in Manhattan in 1844 and the first overseas tour by English cricketers was to Canada and the USA back in 1859. John Wisden (the almanac man) was one of the touring players.
We produced some good cricketers too, like Robert Newhall who bowled W G Grace first ball. Grace immediately presented Newhall with his bat, which is now kept at the CC Morris Library at Haverford College just outside Philadelphia.
And some good sides: In Guyana in 1888 the US team beat the West Indies by nine wickets on the first day of a two innings match. In their first innings, which lasted less than an hour, the West Indies scored only 19 runs, their lowest score ever in international cricket.
Seems like we weren't bad at the game back then. Who knows what might have happened had we been allowed to continue playing at international level?
Unfortunately, in 1898 the MCC founded the Imperial Cricket Conference and countries outside the British Commonwealth were excluded from international cricket.
I wonder if that was the point at which we decided as a nation that we were temperamentally unsuited to the game.
If you ever wonder why America is "the only one of our former colonies that can't beat us at cricket" maybe it has something to do with the fact that we were banned from competing.
