What attracted you to cricket?

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

To be quite honest, it was on television, so I watched it. That's how I got into cricket. It was the debacle in South Africa of 98/99 and I was 11 at the time. However, I only got emotionally attached and absolutely fell in love with cricket when the West Indies played Australia after.

 

[Langeveldt]

What got me into cricket???

Old Trafford 1998.. England v South Africa.. Dad took me to the test..
It was bloody cold, and Allan Donald was steaming in like a man possessed.. England held on for a nailbiting draw.. But after seeing Donald, Pollock, Ntini, Hansie, Jonty in that series, I was more or less hooked on SA cricket.... Previously I think listening to Aggers on TMS in the West Indies in 1997 had a lot to do with me starting to get into the game.. It was perfection in sound, better than any music...

 

[SquidAU]

I have been watching cricket as far back as I can remember, which I think was the 1987/88 season World Series Cup, Australia V Pakistan, where I think Terry Alderman gotten 2 wickets in his first over to have the ****'s at 2/0!

 

[ReallyCrazy]

i wasn't a cricket fan at all and didn't care about it till i was 9. then one day, my cousin came to my place and invited me to play cricket with him and his friends on the street. that was the first time i played and i loved it. Within 6 months, i had moved to dubai and i got loads of ppl from pakistan, india and 2 from australia as my neighbours. i started playing with those guys and now i got totally hooked. Street cricket became a norm every weekend under the 50 degree C sun.

first series i watched was india in south africa in 1992 end. I regularly started watching in 1995.

 

[Eclipse]

I basicly like all sports from Skiing, Golf, Tennis what ever I dont know why cricket got me hooked.

 

[Neil Pickup]

26th June 1990, Lord's

England v India

Graeme Gooch - 333

 

[CDAK]

At present,in my place ,if a kid is not directed towards any other sports, he becomes a cricketer.!!!But during my childhood(early 80s),cricket was not all known to anybody.During 1985,One day my elder brother( who was studying in a military school) came up with "socks ball" and told us that there's game called cricket in which one had to run and "throw" the ball at other who would be having a bat to hit it around. My palce( and entire state Kerala) is blessed with a lot of Coconut trees.So he took a coconut leaf and cut the upper part and shaped it to a bat.(see how economical the accessories!!).There it started....now it's in my blood.... I was fortunate to play club and college level cricket.



The first series I watched in TV was India's Englad tour 1985-86.I remember every good moments of that series still(one of them is the wonderful catch of an Indian batsman by Gooch at slip with 2 people already handled it and he took it by kicking it from almost ground level.... Lucky Eddie might be remebering that, I hope.)


The hero worship bagan with a school guy of my age namely Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar slammed all time great Abdul Quadir for 3 back to back sixes in an over.... ever since that, this man is so influencial in my life that my morale boosts if scores a 100 or performs well. he is my role model.

 

[Beleg]

Pakistan Vs. NZ: 1992. A kid of 4 watched Inzamam hitting the Kiwi's out of the park and got hooked. The first real series I vividly remember is the 1995-6 Pak vs. SL.

 

[Newlands]

Cricket runs in my family so it's pretty natural that I should have picked it up too. It's the best game in the world and I do love a ton of sports. Golf, ice hockey, soccer, tennis, rugby, the list goes on. Cricket is tops though!

 

[Sudeep]

Being an Indian, I don't think it's necessary for me to answer what attracted me to cricket. It's a religion here, as they say.

But I started watching cricket around about the 1992 World Cup. And my uncle is solely responsible for getting my attention to cricket. During the tournament, I used to wake up at 3 am for the matches in New Zealand. Now, at the age of 9, and school at 7 am, I consider it a craze for cricket.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Hmm. Where to start? The sheer amazement that people could play a game for five days. The similarities to games played here which I enjoy. The game's complex rules. The interest in enjoying a sport played so far away from me. I dunno.

Fact is, I'm hooked.

 

[Mecnun]

When first I gained conciousness of any kind round about at age 4 I think, there was only one sport..Cricket. Imran Khan, Micheal Holding, Joel garner, Zaheer Abbas, Sunil gavasker Vivian Richards Sarfraz Nawaz.. We pretended to be each one of these heros when we played with a tennis ball with older boys. We were only there because an older cousin or someone would allow us the grand honour to do the fielding and make up numbers. The older boys were around 10/11.

I cried for two days straight to get mum to buy me a little cricket kit and would play in our garden.

My dad who is a huge cricket fan (he can and will watch scotland play Namibia if it is on telly) took me to Headingly to watch Pakistan v England in 1982. However it is still very hard for me to define a moment when I started being interested in cricket. Suffice to say I woke and there was cricket.

 

[Sehwag309]

P.S: My actual interest started in '96 as I mentioend earlier but I used to play cricket with my friends in the grounds near my apartment building.

I was a pathetic batsmen, bowler but a good fielder. I am sure many indians/pakistanis would know this, I used to be "Kuccha Limbo'. ."Raw Lemon..is the translation but it's more like a Jack". It means I used to play for both sides as a fielder. On one occassion I did get the best batsmen of the opposite team cleaned bowled once (well, he got out due to bad light and I had his wicket due to the same reason). Took an out-of-the-world catch ( I was actually trying to defend myself ).
Great Memories though!

 

[Grubb]

When I was a kid we didn't have a TV so I didn't really watch much cricket, but we went camping one Christmas/New Year on the west coast of the south Island (NZ) and it was a terribly windy day with sand flying everywhere. Somone had a radio going, and it was the last day of the third test between NZ and Oz (1987-88) and as things began getting exciting (in the final session, particularly) people from all around came over to the caravan with the radio to listen. Listening to that commentary (I guess it was Bryan Waddle) with all of these strangers was a pretty cool experience, and a real lesson in what sport can do.
It was also a fantastic game. People forget just how good Hadlee was.

 

[luckyeddie]

Hmm. Where to start? The sheer amazement that people could play a game for five days. The similarities to games played here which I enjoy. The game's complex rules. The interest in enjoying a sport played so far away from me. I dunno.

Fact is, I'm hooked.

Like a fish? I'm not surprised.

 

[Rosh]

This game of cricket got me hooked the moment I held a real cricket bat and got the feeling of the real cricket ball in my palms. It was magical........
I played in streets and fields during my early teens.
Now I dont play much but when I'm free I sure am glued to the T.V to watch cricket.

 

[Loony BoB]

I watched a day-nighter involving de Silva hitting at least two balls out of the park. That's all I remember. Maybe my memory is a bit off and only one ball got lost, but to see someone smash a ball like that just got me pretty damned interested.

 

[Mecnun]

People forget just how good Hadlee was.

Noone who has watched Hadlee bowl can forget how good he was. In my top 5 bowlers of all time

 

[Bouncer]

Well i remember it was Javed Miandad's Sixer that made me start following the cricket. I am not the oldest at the forum but it seems like that my first memory of the gameis oldest here

 

[Swervy]

Well i remember it was Javed Miandad's Sixer that made me start following the cricket. I am not the oldest at the forum but it seems like that my first memory of the gameis oldest here

can beat you on that...the first clear memory i have of the game was botham taking an amazing caught and bowled in a ODI in Australia in about 1979 or 80. kallicharan hit the ball in the air over bothams right shoulder (whilst botham ws in his follow through)...botham hit the ball in the air with his right wrist, and then dived backwards (this is how i remember it anyway) to take the catch with his right hand,and ended up flat on his back.

As Kallicharan walked off he turned around and applauded Botham