As I mentioned before, I was born and raised in California – so how did I end up playing cricket?

Well, in grade school we had a the two brothers from one of the -stan countries (I honestly can’t remember which one) and they were the first to introduce me, in a round about way, to the sport of cricket. Mainly, it was the fact that they played softball mit-less, but it started questions rolling.

It also has to be said that I have been watching British television since the mid-70’s, so I had seen cricket in some form (usually Python form.) But it came to greater attention in 1982 when Peter Davison took over the role of the Doctor on Doctor Who, in his cricket outfit – even playing in one story. My fanaticism took over, and I needed to learn to play…

In 1983 I started to practice with the Stanford University team, even playing in a few league matches (I think I may have even scored one run against my name!) But, alas, rules eventually get enforced – and not being a student of the university I had to stop playing.

So about 21 years later, not playing (equipment which was originally being discarded when I first played, was collecting dust and insects) I caught some professional match highlights on the cable, and hit the local Yahoo! page and found that there is a non-university affiliated league in my area.  So I started practicing with them (for about 8 months, then they changed their practice session to a more inconvenient time – but I plan to start again soon…)

Also, in the same year, I went to my first Doctor Who convention in 16 years in LA (The 13th Floor of Gallifrey One) and they have a cricket match at the end of the weekend. I went again for their 14th convention, and now have some proof of my playing:

This is me bowling for the Wirrin. We lost again to the Platypus this year, but it was an extremely tight match. I lifted this from the convention’s gallery.
And this one is the Wirren from the 2004 convention (I’m on the far right.)

Also, here are a couple of other cricket links:

Here’s a picture that was sent to me recently of either a bowler in action, or some poor guy falling from the sky ;op

Here’s another one I found on the net. It’s of a South African player named Cronje balancing a ball on his nose (from EMPICS – click picture for their site.)

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