Poking Fun at the Incomprehensibility of English Sports

It is World Cup time, and much of the world, myself included, has been quite taken by this particularly strange and fascinating World Cup in Russia. For me, the World Cup has been a welcome bit of distraction from the usual nonsense that seems to dominate our headlines. We have the worst president in history in the White House right now, and we have tensions seeming to grow all around the world. I promised myself to take a bit of a break from much of that nonsense during the World Cup, and to just enjoy this sporting event. For the most part, I seem to have succeeded in this regard.

It has featured some very exciting finishes, as well as some major upsets, adding that key ingredient of unpredictability that has offered some spice to the usually predictable results. This is the first time since way back in 1930, the very first World Cup ever, that neither Germany, Brazil, nor Italy qualified for the semifinal round, and the very first World Cup ever that did not feature any of those teams or Argentina. Italy failed to even qualify, and Germany, rather shockingly, did not make it past the group stage (finished in last place, in fact). Brazil lost in the quarterfinal round. Argentina got knocked out in their first elimination game. So, you know it has been a bizarre World Cup.

Yet, it has been very entertaining and appealing, perhaps particularly because of this lack of predictability. It has added considerable intrigue, as opposed to a semifinal round that would have featured some, if not all, of the usual suspects, such as Brazil, Germany, Italy, and/or Argentina.

We must give due credit to the English for creating this most popular of sports, and their team is thriving in this tournament so far. 

However, some other British sports are not nearly so popular, or even understandable to those of us outside of the United Kingdom.

Some years ago, I was invited by a Pakistani friend to a picnic, mostly with other Pakistani people, as well as some Indians. Perhaps I should have known that a game of cricket would be played, but it still came as a surprise to me when it happened. And I was recruited to play, naturally.

Of course, I knew nothing about cricket. The rules, and almost the point of the game, had largely eluded me then, as it still does now.

What happened to me, as the only real stranger there who clearly did not belong, reminded me of a scene in a movie, "The Beach." There are numerous young people voluntarily stuck on an island in that movie, and at one point, a British guy tries to gather everyone together to play a game of cricket. He is directing them, and the game begins to grow in intensity. But at some point, one person makes a mistake, and the British guy gets annoyed and starts lecturing him, but is told that the game is difficult to understand. He scoffs, and then generally asks everyone else how many people did not understand the game. One or two hands go up reluctantly, then a few more, and before long, everyone but the British guy has his hands raised.

That was pretty much how I felt about that game, and admittedly, it remains how I feel about it. It just seems like a really weird game, the rules and appeal of which elude me, and almost everyone else that I know.

Yes, admittedly, playing the game that one time hardly shed any light on how the game is played, or how the scoring works. It always seemed such a strange game, with incomprehensibly huge points in games that often lasted not just hours, but days.

Still, it is a big deal to fans of the sport, and they swear by it. To illustrate the point, my friend, the one who invited me, had taken off from work so he could watch the Cricket World Cup. And the guys there in the park on that day had taken the game very seriously.

Sometimes, I still find it strange that the people there, Pakistanis and Indians, infamously had tensions between their two countries, and their two peoples, on the international level. Yet here in this country, when they were far from either country, they found more in common then differences between them, and seemed to get along and relate to one another better when in the strange surroundings of a foreign country. Pakistanis claimed not to like Indians, yet they watched Indian television shows and Bollywood movies. My first experience of watching a Bollywood movie was back then, when that friend lent a copy of a popular one to me, and it, too, remained somewhat of a mystery to me. 

Indeed, the whole thing was a bit strange to me. Not surprisingly, then, it had it's origins in Britain, which has some strange customs as a nation that remain mysterious to people on the outside. The British often tend to consume some food and drink that puzzles people on the outside, as well. Warm beer? Also, there is a plant in France, known as ortie there, and known as the stinging nettle in England. Well in Britain, there is another plant that offsets the negative effects of that plant, and my father and I were told once from a British woman that they make wine from that plant. My father joked that maybe that was why the British were not known for their wine, and we laughed. She mildly reprimanded us, saying in a very English accent, "There's no need to b rude about the British." Maybe I should add that one thing that I always appreciated about the British was their dry sense of humor. But some other customs remained a mystery, as well. Things like tea time, which sounds appealing, but which nonetheless seems a bit bizarre to people on the outside. Or how about those weird wigs that judges there tend to wear? And let's be frank: I never got the appeal of having a royal family, although admittedly, Americans (mostly women, but some men) seem to like following that family's doings, and especially the weddings, as well.

In any case, this was a video that I saw by someone posting it on Facebook, and which made me laugh. It shows an incomprehensible game that is obviously made up, yet captures the strangeness of some British sports. At some points, it seems similar to cricket, then it seems a bit like chess (literally), and then  a bit like Canadian curling, and even what seems to resemble a field goal kick. Through it all, you have the quite subdued voices of extremely British sounding commentators mildly putting in their observations, often saying, "yes, yes" in a typically English way, and adding "we've seen this before," which is often how people who are into cricket, specifically, will talk about some incomprehensible strategy to a game that remains an unsolvable mystery to the rest of the world. At another point, one of the commentators also commented on how one of the players swiped at the grass "just in the nick of time."

Naturally, one of the players is casually smoking a pipe that would not look out of place on Sherlock Holmes. 

As I mentioned before, it made me laugh. Take a look, and see if it does not do the same for you: