Cricket - why they invented beer

On Friday I went to my first cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds


with Danny (from Greece) who had also never been to a cricket match:


and TJ (from Melbourne), who is a big fan:


The action on the field was a little slow, though we were highly entertained by the drunken behavior of the fans.


Danny has a video clip of a fight between a fan and some security guards. I'll post it when I get a copy.

If you're not familiar with one-day cricket, basically all you need to know is that 1 team bats for about 4 hours, they take a 45 minute break, and then the other team bats for another 4 hours. In other words, halfway through the match the fans have been drinking for 5 hours and is pretty rowdy. Danny said this about cricket, "They must have invented this game to get drunk because its so boring otherwise."


The match did get interesting in the end as England was approaching Australia's score from earlier in the day, but had only a few remaining balls to try to exceed the Aussie run total. In a major upset, England defeated Australia 253-252.

All in all, a fun (and long) experience...