Last Friday, I played cricket at lunchtime with my department at work. I know – how very English of me!

It was very fun, and also quite funny. They were hysterical at the fact that I kept throwing the bat after I hit the ball. In cricket, the batter has to hold on to the bat, because he has to use the bat to tap the stump, which is the cricket equivalent to a base. They kept telling me (through giggles) not to do that, but every time I hit the ball, I instinctively let go of the bat, and hilarity ensued.

I was fairly good at batting, and not so terrible at bowling. Bowling is like pitching, except you have to keep your arm straight the whole time. I was amazed at how far I launched the ball by letting go to early in the circle – Wooooooooooo off it went. WAY over the batter and into the next part of the field. I got the giggles quite severely and had some trouble regaining my concentration for the next bowl.

So the other thing one needs to do in cricket is catch. I am absolutely terrible at catching. I have ALWAYS been absolutely terrible at catching. When Thad hit me in the face with the wiffle ball, it was most certainly not his fault. Well, it was his fault that he hit it so HARD (hrmph. brothers.), but it was not his fault that I didn’t catch it. That’s just me.

Anyway, again, there was quite a bit of teasing and giggling in my general direction due to the lack of catching skill. One of my colleagues even teasingly started to stand behind me in the field – to catch my leftovers.

So tomorrow we’re playing cricket again, and while I HAVE been practicing my catching skills, I can only imagine what will happen next. The good thing, though, is that everyone found my cheerleading entertaining enough to make up for my embarrassing lack of catching.

It’s good to have something to fall back on. GO TEAM!!