In Which Courtney Attends Her First Cricket Match

Yep, it's true. I went to a cricket match.

My British friend, James, had been going on about cricket, well, all year. But it recently became some sort of renewed obsession for him, so he found a listing of all cricket in Hungary, and found a pitch with a match being played relatively close to us in Gödöllő, which if you remember, I went to back in the fall.

So, we took the HEV (the above-ground railway/metro thing) out of Budapest. Luckily, I thought to get some sort of directions before we left, because we would have been lost. While Gödöllő is not very large, it's not very small either. So we wandered in the general way of my directions and then James heard the sounds of Cricket and we spelunked our way through some trails and found an old football(soccer) pitch and there was the game.

Cricket is pretty neat. Very very confusing, as there is far too much (British) terminology that I don't understand at all. James tried to explain, but I kept getting it all mixed up. Also, these games go on ALL DAY. And some matches can go for up to FIVE days! No wonder the scores are often like 145-187! And I still have no idea if there are innings or how you actually know when the game is over. And one batter can be up for the whole game if he's good enough, but the bowlers only throw about 8 balls at a time. And I still don't know who all the players are and what they're supposed to do (nor did Wikipedia's image search help me make much sense either! This was the explanation they gave.), or what the rules are to follow. But it was fun to watch, and I'd be interested to go again.

So, there are two batters and a bowler

and the wicket(s) is(are) behind the batter(s).

And the wicket(s)/batter(s)/bowler is in the center of the field.

And the rest of the 'fielding' team is around them.

The Bowler (not pictured) tries to hit the top off the wicket.

The batter tries to hit the ball, and then runs to the other wicket

while the batter at the other wicket runs to this wicket.

Something like that?

After an hour or so of trying to figure out the blasted game, we decided we needed ice cream and dessert (it was hot out!). So, we went back to the dessert place Laura and I got our sugar high from last time, and it did not disappoint. Then we went back to hang out in the gardens at the palace, eat some langos, and just relax. The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, and in general it was a really nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon!