Thanks to the twin miracles of satellites and TiVo, I’ve had the Ashes cricket contest between England and Australia on while working for the last couple of days.

I don’t wish to bore the 85% of my readership who are guaranteed not to
care.  But it’s absolutely thrilling.  Most of the time I just keep my eyes on the keyboard
and my ears half-tuned to the gentle purr of announcers debating the placement of slips and covers and the
questionable wisdom of legging out singles when faced with a long chase.  Much of this washes over.

But every now and again, right in the middle of this tea-sipping refinement, there’s a sudden gale of googly-eyed unarticulated Wilhelm screaming. 
Like nothing in any American sport I know.  Then I look up, rewind, and
see what the hell just
happened:  A wicket!  Or not!  Usually not!  Usually it’s just a lot of
screaming!  Everybody, all at once, eleven guys bellowing like they’ve
been attacked by crocodiles!  Because the ball hit the pads first, not
the bat! 
Or didn’t!  Depending!

BLEAAAAAAAAAUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!

Shane Warne in particular seems to think his testicles are coming unspooled, about once every five minutes.

And I’m a big Shane Warne fan, mind you.  Just saying.

Between these outbursts, the announcers go back to soporific meditation, actually saying things
like (and this is a direct quote from today): "The next several hours
will be pivotal."

Which, yes, they actually were.

Cricket is the only
sport played in evolutionary time.

With frequent primal screaming.

If you’re curious at all, click the link above and hit "open" next to
"Audio And Video" in the upper right, anytime after about 5:30 am EDT
either day this weekend.  You’ll get an audio feed from
Radio Five which might make little sense whatsoever for a while, but
which will, eventually, include at least a few good
BLEAAAAAAAAAUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!s and perhaps a meandering testicle or two.

One last thing, for the three people reading this actually following
the test: is it just me, or is the English wicketkeeper so bad that he’s actually one of the
best players on the Australian side right now?

UPDATE: The second test just finished.  Warne got a pile of wickets,
but Australia’s best batsmen folded in the second innings, leaving only
the three weakest-hitting bowlers needing to score 107 runs.  The
baseball equivalent would be expecting pitchers to mount a 10-run
comeback in the bottom of the ninth.  It should have been over in
minutes.

Except it wasn’t.

Fabulous.

UPDATE AGAIN: I am informed that there is a discussion somewhere at a sports blog called The Frog where I am referred to as "America’s cricket fan."  Singular.

Excellent.  Genuinely funny.  Too bad it feels all too true.

I’ve also heard from several people that BLEAAAAAAAAAUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!
is actually a common mispronunciation of "Howzat?", which in turn is
presumably short for "excuse me, gentle umpire, but how is that shot,
in your estimation, good sir?"

You can see the resemblance.

It still sounds like eleven guys being attacked by crocodiles while their testicles come unspooled.