It is a beautiful, sunny day, and we have arranged a Village outing to one of the nicest venues in test cricket.
“Booooo!” somebody cries.
“What’s happening?” asks John Twonil, joining in the crowd’s confusion.
It appears that cricketer Ian Bell has been unfairly run out for not knowing the rules. People look at each other, not knowing what is going on. “Booooo!” somebody else shouts as the players leave the field. It is clear that the crowd might be difficult to disperse.
“There will now be a tea break for twenty minutes,” intones the announcer.
There is a mad rush as the crowd disperses for the bar and toilets.
“I am a bit torn,” I tell Big Andy, as we see the queue for Guinness. “I don’t want to be late back and miss my chance to have another good boo.”
We hesitate, before agreeing that I will queue for the bar whilst he goes to the toilet, meaning that we will save time and hopefully be back to our seats for the resumption of the boo. A few minutes later, I hand him the tray of drinks and rush to the urinals. As I relieve myself, a man sprints in and stands beside me.
“Hurry up,” he says to himself. “Must get back to boo.”
I am a little late returning to the stand, but fortunately the game has been held up on some technicality. There is excitement in the crowd as the opportunity to boo grows nearer.
“Here they come!” somebody exclaims, as the door opens and the umpires and Indian team walk out.
“Booooo!” I shout.
“Booooooooo!” shouts Big Andy.
“Booo! Booooo boooooooo!” shouts Mrs Big Andy, John Twonil and the Village Doctor. “Boooooo!”
Cricketer Ian Bell emerges from the pavilion. “Boooo!” we shout. Oh. “Hoooooray! Hooray!” We cheer cricketer Ian Bell, although to be quite honest we are a little disappointed as we feel like we have been booing unjustifiably. “It is like our boo has been taken away from us,” I tell the Village Doctor, who nods sadly.
Later on, the announcer bursts into action again. “Here is an announcement. At teatime, the Indian captain MS Dhoni withdrew his appeal against cricketer Ian Bell,” he informs us.
“Hooooray!” Hooray for the Indians and their captain MS Dhoni. We get to our feet and clap and cheer for this very sporting gesture.
“Please get to your feet and clap and cheer for this very sporting gesture,” the announcer adds, somewhat tarnishing our impromptu appreciation, as earlier on we had been denied the justice of the boo.
The serious business of cricket continues in an entertaining fashion, helped along by a man dressed as a giant fish being repeatedly ejected from the stand. Big Andy accidentally drops his Guinness on the man sitting in front of us.
Later on and back home, I send him a text. “Your big booing face is on Sky TV,” I tell him.
I heard you on the tele.
Oh, and cricket doesn’t have ‘rules’. It has ‘laws’. We expect a blogger of international status like you to get these things right. Otherwise foreigners may be confused by your reports.
Is it my imagination or has cricket lost a little of its decorum?
I know I have a slight bias here but Trent Bridge hardly rates as one of the nicest places to watch test cricket. Give me Old Trafford any day.
Oh, it was YOU, was it?
MB – exactly, you have a slight bias whereas I have built my name on journalistic integrity as demonstrated by high quality reports such as this one.
Yes, great chance for a good boo but I soon ran out of energy and when Bell came out again was totally confused.
Fortunately peace broke out and I never had to weigh the relative merits of staying on for the riots and burning Nottingham to the ground versus giving up my First Class super saver.
Good ol’ Indians – very sporting considering.
Take your Boos back Jonny.
Hullo Mick and welcome. To be honest, we were going through that late afternoon lull, and a good boo perked us up no end. It should be on the NHS.
Can relate to the ‘totally confused’ bit though – I think the announcer was doing a Work-to-rule.
Tillylil – the boos were withdrawn, forthwith.
It sounds too much like baseball fans to be quite cricket.
Still, nothing like assuming one’s moral authority with a hearty, “boooo!” It’s why we love sports, after all.
I don’t like that when people stand next to me in the urinals. They always end up leaving before me which makes me feel slightly uneasy. I thought it was a particularly rousing boo.
A tray of drinks? There’s posh. You can tell Trent Bridge isn’t in Norfolk
Finest cardboard tray, Z.
There was a nasty little email read out on Radio 5 last night, lamenting the fact that a drunken, swearing crowd of hate could intimidate the cricketers so. It got my back up a little. No swearing that I heard, pantomime ‘boooo’s, and most of this directed at the lack of information… even the stewards were laughing and winking at the crowd. Not a nice thing to be boooooed, but an utterly unthreatening situation. Probably looked a lot worse on the telly and in the Daily Mail etc.
[This comment here for anybody visiting who is actually interested]
I haven’t dared watch cricket since the one time I accidentally tuned in just in time to see the impeccably dressed man solemnly wheel a shining silver tea trolly out on the pitch. I was so delighted by the idea of a sport that required a full formal meal midway through to sustain the enormous effort of lumbering several yards in a straight line that I’ve been terrified ever since I might discover it was all a dreadful mistake.
NB If this is the case please don’t disillusion me. I would hate to have the cricket tea trolley go the way of Father Christmas, the tooth fairy and the verruca gnome.
Huge number of visitors arriving from Google searching for ‘man dressed as fish at Trent Bridge’.
If you are one of those people, I think he has signed with Max Clifford – try there.
Megan: they still do the silver service at tea, and champagne comes onto the field at the ‘drinks break’, you know.
So let me get this straight. None of you had the slightest idea what was going on, but you all booed anyway. With a break for tea. The Tea Party analogies are too tempting to resist, except that they are winners. I should stick to bowls if I were you, Jonny, where everyone knows exactly what they’re booing at, ie, you.
As for baseball fans, Joan, cricket still has a lot of catching up to do if this is anything to go by…
Is not baseball much the same as cricket. You hit a ball with a stick and then run around a lot.
But in cricket the umpires don’t make noises like they’re throwing up after a party, or point a finger at some innocent bystander to their right when the batsman misses the ball.
I don’t know that game 🙁