I really don’t like cricket. I ought to love it – I mean I hate sport, and what could be less sporty than standing around most of the time, waiting and running for shelter at the first hint of rain. But I can’t stand it. I think it’s the thought that people actually get paid for playing it that turns my stomach.
Anyhoo, the rugby season is over and the boys have taken up cricket. The cricket parents seem a very different crowd from the rugby bunch, who are amiable and truly from all walks of life. Not so with the cricket dads. They all sat there with their Blackberries and The Sunday Times. One bemoaned the state of the floor in his snooker room. Another moaned that he just didn’t seem to get the time to take the Caterham out for a spin these days. There were phone calls to ‘the boys on the boat in Sicily’ about ‘closing down the deal before we lose the bonus’.
The only light relief came when one dad told a story about how the night before a strange woman had phoned his house and asked for him by name. His wife had taken the call and it transpired she was looking for someone else with the same name. His friends joshed him that he was really just telling them the story to bolster his alibi. The more he denied it the more they teased him about having an affair. I sat in the back row laughing like a drain in the rain.
They sound like they are the partners of the ballet mums. I didn’t much like sitting in a room with the ballet mums, but they were actually not-that-bad, especially in comparison with their revolting other-halves. In fact, now that I’m thinking about them I’m feeling a bit misty-eyed. All the daughters hate ballet these days and I’ll never see those mums again. sniff.
Sadly cricket was very dad-heavy… again, unlike rugby which is very evenly split.