Cricket!

Last Friday we had an office off-site that included going to a Bollywood movie and playing cricket. The Bollywood movie was everything I thought it would be...and less. A very very silly movie with almost no plot (it was in Hindi and I could follow it fairly easily and my Hindi is still pretty basic) and a musical number in the middle that definitely had nothing to do with anything. But the audience gets really into it which made if fun.

But enough about Bollywood - on to cricket! Before playing I looked the game up on-line to try and figure it out. It is actually not that complicated to get the basics, it just that there are lots of exceptions and random rules which make it seem a lot more complicated. We set up the game near India gate which I would compare ambiance wise to paying a game on the National Mall in DC; a huge grassy area (I believe 5 km long) with people hanging out enjoying the sun, it is still in the 90s during the day here, but the humidity is gone so it is nice. We all had to bat and we all had to pitch - apparently in real cricket matches everyone pitches and if you throw a pitch wide (read - foul ball) the other team gets a point. I wasn't a good pitcher, for lack of a better expression I throw like a girl, but I was on okay bats-woman and I am very proud to say that I got a run, hooray! The score was something like 90 to 86 or something so getting a run isn't actually that difficult, but there were some people that didn't get one and it was my first time playing so...yeah! And I was actually able to run; which 4 months after breaking my foot was the really big hooray.

And since I'm now addicted to adding photos to my blog, here is a picture of me getting ready to bat (it is kind of small but if you click on the photo it opens up in to a new screen and you can see it better). I feel so very Indian :)