C for

C for Cricket

Because we have just had the summer to remember this year my mind is still on summery things.

Cricket.

If there was an Australian national sport I guess cricket would have to be it. We play many sports here in Australia but none really get to the heart of an Aussie like the cricket does. Over 93% of the Australian population has watched the cricket at some time over the summer.

Cricket was brought to Australia by the English back when we were a penal colony. It only took a few years before the 'Colonials' were playing against the 'Mothers' (whoops, sorry – the Motherland) and of course we whipped their arses so soundly that the powers that be decided to create the 'Ashes' series, which are now played every second year.

The Ashes were named after a satirical obituary was published in a British newspaper in 1882 after Australia thrashed England on English soil for the first time. In it, the obituary stated that English cricket was dead and the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The English media printed that the next English tour to Australia as the quest to regain the ashes.

While in Australia, a terracotta urn was presented to the English team by a group of Australian Women. In it, the ashes of a bail (a bit of wood off the stumps).  Ha, I love that bit .. suck it up English team.

The most watched program on Australian Summer television was born.

Christmas & Boxing days are not the same unless a game of backyard cricket is up and running before Christmas dinner. And Boxing day is usually spent relaxing in front of the TV watching the Test match. 
Terms like 'bowled for a duck' 'lbw' & flippers become commonplace language over the summer cricket season and everyone has an opinion on why we are or aren't bowling/batting/fielding well. 

Kids playing street cricket is sadly a thing of the past but many an adult today would have played and would look back fondly on the friendships forever forged bowling a maiden over, arguing the exact location of the boundaries and the definition of a chuck as opposed to a bowl.

Our most famous & arguably best cricketer was Don Bradman or 'The Don' and every kid wanted to be like him. He was and is the stuff of legends with a 99.94 batting average, no other cricketer in the world has come close.

and Cherries
 I had such a huge choice for 'C' in my Aussie icons.  Convicts, Canning stock route, currawongs, caravans - oh the list is long. But, I settled on cherries. Why you ask? Because I'm eating a bunch of them right now.
Another thing that Christmas is not the same without in Australia is cherries. It doesn't matter if you are a traditionalist (hot Christmas dinner with plum pudding) or a nouveau traditionalist (cold seafood, salad and pavlova) cherries feature in most if not all of our homes during the Christmas break and the summer months as a morsel to munch on, as an accompaniment, as a meal or as a midnight snack while you are watching the live cricket telecast from India or England or South Africa.
In October each year the first box of cherries of the season is auctioned at our produce markets at Homebush in Sydney  for charity. Last year (2012) the first box of cherries went for $30,000.  The record was 2010 when a 5 kg box went for $110,000.
The auction signifies the official start of the stone fruit season in Australia. 
Technically the cherry season lasts for 100 days and I guess that's why they are so popular here and why we all go mad for them.
When we were kids the best thing was the seed spitting competitions, usually instigated by my father who would shoot a pip past us silently inviting us to join in. Until my mother would come out and make us stop as it wasn't very lady like behaviour. I'm sure poor Dad was only giving his girls some social skills to fall back on if being a lady ever got boring.
Now, as I eat cherries I have flashbacks to the black forest trifles, the jam & the fruit salads.
We probably eat about a kilo a week while they are in season in this house and have been known to drive to the town of Young (a long long long drive) to procure a box or two of their juiciest.
Oh, and I can still take out the eye of a needle from 20 paces with a cherry pip.