Cricket...
I hated cricket. Not only was it a long and tedious game, but those balls could really fucking hurt.

This was discovered by two kids at my school on two very different occasions.

The first was during a mongs game. While the kids who could play were off wasting an afternoon throwing a piece of leather towards some bits of wood, us non-cricket playing spanners were cocking about on a small scrap of field, gently tossing the ball in the general direction of the stumps, so the batter could swing wildly at thin air, usually relinquishing their grip on the bat at the top of the swing, then running anyway.

I forget the names of the ball chucker and the bat thrower, but I remember that it was Tom who was at the chucker's end. He thought he'd be safe if he crouched down in front of the stumps, but he should have known better. He'd played mong cricket before. He knew that underarm bowling was de rigeur among the sport spaz's. He should have guessed that the ball would be released with no control, directly into his grinning face. The game was abandoned after that due to a bout of utter hysteria among the players.

The second incident is quite unlikely, and I wouldn't believe it ever happened had I not been there to witness it with these two eyes that I'm looking at this screen with at this very moment.

We were in the school gym and people were standing at the end of the nets having cricket balls flung at them at a frightening pace. I don't know why I was there, but I spent the entire time in fear for my life and nervously watching everything that was going on.

The same can't be said of another boy. A portly lad who I'll call Leighton, as I think that's what his parents named him, was chatting casually at the end of the nets, facing the wall from which the bowlers (these weren't of the mong variety) began their speedy run up.

I can't remember who was batting, but I remember him hitting an almighty shot that sailed the length of the gym, struck the far wall and made its return journey at quite a pace. Leighton, too distracted by his conversation for someone in the close vicinity of quick flying cricket balls, found himself to be a temporary recipient of an extra ball in his testicular region.

Needless to say the session was abruptly closed due to debilitating laughter among the participants.
( Moey, Mon 2 Feb 2009, 20:48, Reply)