CRICKET SKILLS

There was a group of young South Asian men at one of the arcade games at the carnival. Off to the right of the frame were shelves of empty glass beer bottles, spaced somewhat apart. Players got three baseballs for their money and were awarded a prize if they could break one or more bottles. This contestant broke one. I showed him this picture and told him he was the best fast bowler in Webster Groves.             

Jiminy

It's been a bad week for posts. New dimensions in overwork and several other attention-suckers. I would so like to cut back but it's not easy.

Anyway, back at Artica, crickets were all over the place. A boy got one to rest on his wrist. He was fascinated but worried that the bug might bite him. Do crickets do that? No harm came to anyone.  Oh, and if you don't recognize the title click here.

PS: I am told on good authority that this is a grasshopper, not a cricket. I'm a city kid. What do I know?

Cricket

Everything I know about cricket I learned from Monty Python. I've see people fooling around with cricket bats and balls in Forest Park and watched it on TV in the UK. I sort of get the general idea but have to ask myself why? Sure, there are people who feel the same way about baseball (one of whom lives in Birmingham) but, as best I can tell, baseball has so many more nuances and complexities. To each their own. As we can see above, even Harry Potter plays cricket.

These are the first photos from our big Festival of Nations that took place in Tower Grove Park a week ago. Members of a cricket team let people have a wack. St. Louisans from all over the world were there. Mrs. C, old Kathmandu hand that she is, worked the Mitrata Nepal booth one afternoon (see bottom of right sidebar). More to come. 
                        

About Yesterday's Picture

Turn around and see this.

We caught the last weekend of the annual Lantern Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden on Friday night. It is always on Chinese themes. Yesterday's pic was of the reflection of this scene in a window. The event always brings out the crowds. There's lots more to see.                        

Lawn Bowling

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American sports fans, forget about Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee. We got some serious hurling going on. Sundaram here is a fast bowler, trying to blow the ball by the batsman. I did not realize the the bowler's feet completely leave the ground at one point in the delivery. Cricket bats have a lot more surface area than the baseball variety but I know I couldn't hit one of his throws.

Swing Batter Batter

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Baseball season is over except in San Francisco and Dallas-Ft. Worth, but it's always cricket season somewhere in the world. I was cruising around Forest Park yesterday suffering from the dreaded brain-and-eye cramp syndrome, looking for anything to shoot. I found some Indian guys playing pick-up cricket on one of the athletic fields. Bingo.

I've never attended a cricket match but I've seen it on TV around the former British Commonwealth. We've been to India a couple of times, where it's played everywhere. The batsman below lived for many years in Varanasi, where we saw boys playing the game on the ghats, the steps leading down to the sacred Ganges, holding the wickets in piles of cow dung. Still have only the vaguest idea of how the scoring works.

Tomorrow: a fast bowler.