Last night, I watched the cricket.
Put my feet up on the desk, put on my noise cancelling headphones, cracked a Fulton, and watched the cricket.
It was brilliant.
And I mean that.
There are few things in this life that give me more pleasure than watching test cricket.
And I mean that, too.
And by “few” I mean, like, 50. Which sounds like a lot until you start to think about all of the things there are in the world that give me pleasure.
And 50 is high. It could be as low as 25, or even 20.
But when Willow is streaming, and the outfields are green, and the uniforms white, I feel this supreme sense of calm wash over me. I am lulled not to sleep, but into this lovely zen like state where nothing matters outside of my relationship with the game.
It is not like other sports. I rarely exclaim, or groan, and I rarely watch a match while standing (I am a notorious pacer during Arsenal games). Instead it is like taking a warm bath after a long day.
In my house, during the Australian summer anyway, it is dark and drafty with winter roaring away outside, and life roaring away inside my mind; but on the computer it is warm green sunshine peace.
Cricket can be a violent sport. It is of course not nearly as pastoral as this is making it seem. But even the violence feels like part of the game’s rhythm. And of course everything is ruined when Willow TV gets the hiccups, and occasionally I step out of my meditation zone to discuss the match at cricket’s virtual pub (Twitter), and sometimes it rains, but last night, for the most part, I was positively 100% content to watch Hashim Amla quietly pick apart the Australian attack, Fulton in hand, at peace with the world, and all of those in it.
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“Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.”
Limited Overs 