The statistical relationship between cricket and pants

Warning: This blog entry is just a little bit Women's Magazine. There is cricket (obviously) but in relation to Other Girlie Stuff (not Icky Girlie Stuff, don't panic). Just so you know.

It may surprise people to hear this, but there is no direct correlation between the amount you know (or claim to know) about cricket and/or cricketers and the position of my underwear. No, really. The logical people reading this - and I do hope this means most, if not all, of my audience - will be saying, "Why on earth does she feel the need to mention this?" Some of you may feel slightly queasy at the thought of me sullying cricket with talk of my undergarments. I can only apologise. But being a single-and-attempting-to-date woman who openly loves cricket seems to have brought the idiots crawling out of the woodwork.

The main thing is this: women who are genuinely into cricket for the cricket are not going to be star-struck because a man claims his sister's doctor's uncle's dog once almost spilled Graeme Swann's pint in a beer garden.

T*TS! Now that I've got your attention...

Hands up who watches a lot of women's cricket. Be honest. Now, lower your hand if you're somehow involved in the women's game; coach, player, statistician, whatever. Anyone left?

My hand isn't up, and that's not just because I'm typing at the moment. I watched a lot of cricket last year. It started with the England / Australia ODIs and the World Cup on TV. Then we had the county season where I took up residence in the stands at the Oval. I listened to the commentary on my computer at home. Sri Lanka series on the TV with a brief attempt to watch a day of the Test live (bloody rain). India tests on TV and a couple of glorious days at the Oval. More county stuff, more international stuff. Cricket all over the place.

Men's cricket, anyway.

A woman? In the Pavilion?!

I'll tell you now that I didn't always love cricket. I describe myself as a recent passionate convert. Here's how it happened:

I was vaguely aware of Cricket hanging around at various points in my life, like that weird friend of your sibling who you'll say "hi" to but not actually meet his eye because then you'll inevitably have to have a Real Proper conversation with him. And that would be bad, because he's a bit odd, and you don't understand half of what he says, and Oh my god! What if that makes him think I like him? Eeeew!  So I ignored Cricket in quite a shifty way, despite other people assuring me that Cricket and I would get on really well if we got to know each other. I disagreed, claiming that Cricket was boring and insanely difficult to understand. Cricket continued to hang around in the background, unperturbed.

I tolerated Cricket over the years, went through phases of acceptance (Oh, Cricket's here again) and resentment (Is bloody Cricket here AGAIN??) and began to pick up bits and pieces about Cricket despite myself. Still, I maintained that we would never have a proper relationship because Cricket just Wasn't My Type.

Then, one day, it struck me that Cricket was, in fact, really lovely.