Cricket in Barbados

I admittedly go through hobby-phases - obsessing over learning how to make puff pastry; teaching myself book binding which doesn't come in handy as much as you'd think; and I have cross-stitch projects that can last a decade. Finally Dan and I have a hobby together - trying to figure out cricket. We expect that it will take us the entire time we are in Trinidad and may necessitate tours in other cricket-playing countries (yes this includes England but also includes Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan - thanks to the greatness of empire).

My work trip to Barbados (yes it sounds funny) coincided with the 20/20 World Cup. I think it is safe to say that when you can buy World Cup tickets that weekend that either there is a recession OR 20/20 cricket has not entirely caught on.

As a reminder 20/20 cricket is a type of cricket where each team plays 20 overs each (baseball translation: an over is kind of like a mini-inning although cricket has their own innings - always in the plural)



Our seats for the World Cup were in fact in the party area which featured stiltwalkers. All-you-can-drink Bajan Banks beer and a lot of sun. I never remember to pack hats which is why I purchased this - one of the ugliest hats ever.





The event was held at Barabados' Kensington Oval. Here is me buying tickets on a day with less sun (and no Chester Cheetah). The event was England vs. Australia - England won handily. Earlier in the tournament the Windies had actually beaten England but they won because of the dratted Duckworth Lewis scoring system that determines a winner in the event of rain. No one believes that the Windies are better than England.

We also decided to test our cricket attention span by moving from 20/20 cricket (a 3.5 hour game) on to One Day International (ODI) which is essentially 50/50. We only made it through half so we saw the Windies batting their 50 overs atrociously and we skipped the South Africans batting but heard that South Africa won. The next day at the airport I saw many Windies heading home to Barbados and they seemed a little too jovial given their loss.