Differences between British and US sports/sport

First, we Yanks say “sports” and the Brits opt for “sport.”  I don’t care to into the linguistic aspect, just a quick note on sports.  Consider the following photographs taken from a recent Cricket match in England.  These are English batters celebrating among Australian fielders:

What are they celebrating?  Well first let me tell you a little bit that I know about Cricket.  There are different types of cricket, two of which I’ll mention here.  First there is “Limited overs” Cricket which is roughly analogous to a baseball game where both sides get a maximum number of pitches thrown to them.  Then there is “Test Cricket” which is considered the “highest form” of the game.  These are usually played on an international level with one country traveling to another for a series of matches.  The first known match and longest rivalry is between England and Australia.  This has become known as  “The Ashes” series and happens about every 18 months if I’m not mistaken.  The first of five matches was recently completed and the pictures above are from the end of that match.  Now Test matches are different than any other team sport in the US.  They are scheduled to last 5 days!  Each team bats twice and they play for about six hours each day!  For those of you with short attention spans, you may opt to watch a “limited overs” match which only lasts a day.  :-)

Needless to say, this is a bit different than what we’re used to in the states.  We don’t like long games.  Looking at our top three sports, football and baseball last about three hours and we complain that they last too long.  Imagine, five days!  I suppose after all of that you’d celebrate like the batsmen in the pictures are.  Imagine the thrill of victory after a five day epic!  That’s what they’re celebrating, right?  Nope.  They’re rejoicing in a draw!  A tie!  Five days of cricket, and the English side, as well as English cricket fans were elated that they didn’t lose!  Could we Americans imagine this?  Of course not.  We work it so that the only draws possible are in professional football and even then, that is only if neither team scored in an overtime period, which rarely happens.  We hate ties so much that we changed college football rules so they wouldn’t happen anymore - ever.  They don’t happen in basketball, and the closest thing to a tie in baseball is when two teams play a doubleheader and each team wins one game.  And in the words of Marty Brennaman, splitting the doubleheader is like kissing your sister.  (No offense intended to my wonderful siblings out there.  I’m sure you understand the sentiment).  So when it comes to cricket, I doubt the United States would ever be able to field a decent squad.  We just don’t have the patience for it.  But regardless.  Congratulations to England!  Good job not losing that first test series!