McGregor Devils

Cricket, a gentlemen’s Leslie game

We have three residential colleges on USQ’s campus. Every week, we have a different competition between each of the colleges. Last week was Trivia Night and I had previously met an Aussie named Myles who asked me to play on his team.  Knew absolutely none of the questions I was supposed to (ie NBA basketball teams, when the Americans first landed on the moon, the day the Titanic sunk, basically all the American questions) but I still met a bunch of really nice guys and our team came in third, although McGregor came in last overall.

my trivia team
Aden, Tonto, Laura, Nick, Micker, Martin, Myles
This week the competition was cricket. The afternoon before the match, we all met out on a cricket pitch outside and played with real gear. The ball, small and hard, the bat, ridiculously heavy and awkward, and the rules were all difficult to understand. Thankfully some of the kids from trivia night were there to help me and my Danish friend Mai figure it all out. I felt as if I was re-enacting Brian Regan’s stand up about playing baseball when he was little. There was a moment where the cricket ball came flying at my face and I was so scared and it happened so fast that I just fell backwards and sat on my butt. Everyone was so happy and started clapping and I said, “Why are you clapping? Did I score a point?!” and they said “No, because you moved your head out of the way of the cricket ball!!” Good eye Leslie, good eye. When we actually played in the competition, it was indoor cricket, and we played with plastic bats and a tennis ball (which my face was incredibly happy about!) and it was much easier. I actually wasn’t too terrible at bowling (pitching the ball) and on my last pitch, all of the McGregor’s’ started chanting Les-Leee, Les-Leee and I got the other girl out by throwing the ball at the wickets! I was pretty terrible at batting through (but got slightly better when I got the advice to hit the ball with the other side of the bat), and could never determine when to run or not. Most of the time I was hovering in between the two sides of the pitch until someone yelled at me to run. But, they let Mai be my partner, so we made fools of ourselves together! It’s supposed to be a “gentleman’s game” but I thought it was so much fun that it could be my game too!   

Mai and I before our cricket match, reppin McGregor devils

home sweet home :)