News headlines

„France beats the Matildas 2:0“
“AFL grand final loss to the Eagles at the MCG reopens old Magpies wounds”
“The Suns didn’t match the Tigers’ offer”
“Wallabies need to add points to progress against Pumas.”
“An end-of-season Test match between the Kangaroos and Tonga is set to be rubber.”
“Wallaroos get their revenge on World Cup hosts Ireland”
“Jillaroos rookies out for more highlights”
“Aussie Pearls win first world sevens title”
“Iran make play for Socceroos’ young gun”
“Joeys qualify for under-17 world champs”
“Aussie Sharks swoop on silver in World Cup”
“Australia’s Opals beaten 73-71 by Serbia”
“Sutton camp eye new Rabbitohs deal soon”
“Roos call looms for Roosters Mitchel”
“Dragons thump Broncos”

Can you identify the sport from the team name?

These nicknames all sound the same to me. I wonder if you would be able to answer these questions:

1. Do the Wallaroos, Jillaroos, Socceroos, Rabbitohs and Kangaroos play the same sport? ¹⁾
2. And are the Matildas, Goannas and Kookaburras all women’s teams? ²⁾
3. Do the Sharks, Stingers, Crocs, Barramundies and Stingrays all compete in water sports? And which kind of water sport? ³⁾
4. Furthermore, do the “drop bears” compete in Quidditch (Harry Potter’s favourite sport)? ⁴⁾
5. In addition, which cities represent the following rugby teams: Broncos, Cowboys, Titans, Rabitohs, Panthers, Roosters, Dragons, Eels, Sea Eagles and Tigers? ⁵⁾

At the end of this article, you will find the answers.

Australian regions have even more interesting, confusing and funny names, such as: the mighty mozzies (see this Guardian article).

Australians aren’t afraid to have a laugh with their team names, with classics like the Cockroaches and Cane Toads gracing the State of Origin. Yes, you heard it right – those are real team names, not the punchline of a bad joke!

Australian International Team Names Quiz

Think you’ve got what it takes to remember all of Australia’s national sports team nicknames? Give it a go, but don’t be surprised if you’re stumped – even my Aussie wife and I couldn’t get them all right!

Have fun!

1. Wallaroos = Rugby Union Women
   Jillaroos = Rugby League Women
   Socceroos = Football (Soccer) men
   Rabbitohs = Rugby League Men South Sydney
   Kangaroos = Rugby League Men
2. Matildas = Football (Soccer) Women
   Goannas = Basketball Men (deaf)
   Kookaburras = Field hockey Men
3. Sharks = Water Polo Men but also Lacrosse Men
   Stingers = Water Polo Women
   Crocs = Basketball Men U21 but also Handball Men or Lacrosse Men U21
   Barramundies = Ultimate frisbee mixed
   Stingrays = Ultimate frisbee Women U23
4. The „Drop bears“ are really the national Quidditch Team of Australia
5. Brisbane Broncos
   Townsville Cowboys
   Gold Coast Titans
   South Sydney Rabitohs
   Penrith Panthers
   Sydney Roosters
   George Illawarra Dragons
   Parramatta Eels
   Manly-Warringah (Sydney) Sea Eagles
   Wests Tigers (Inner West und Western Sydney)

The post Nicknames of Australian Sports Teams appeared first on GoAustralia.

In cricket, you have to be patient first and foremost, since a game usually lasts up to 5 days.

The ten countries that are allowed to play the official version of cricket (called Test Cricket) have all been once seized (not to say invaded) by the British: Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The tenth eligible country is not a country of its own, but a group of countries, the British West Indies.

Eleven little batsmen stood on the oval …

Now, if the unknowing wants to try to understand cricket, then he should look at the game from a child’s perspective. With the help of counting out rhymes it is not so boring any more. The aim of one team is to throw ten people from the other team out of the game.

Take a piece of green and mark an oval. That’s the playing field. In the middle, prepare a 20-meter long and three meter wide strip, the pitch. At the two ends of the pitch you erect three vertical posts (stumps), on the end of which you put two small crossbeams (bails). The whole is called a wicket (reminiscent of children’s building blocks) and should possibly not break from the point of view of the batting team. The field team is of the opposite opinion and has set the collapse of the wicket as a goal.

Each team has eleven players, but in total there are only 13 out of 22 players on the pitch. One team is the bowling and fielding side and one the batting team. The respective bowling and fielding team plays in full strength, in contrast to their opponents, who are represented with only two men on the pitch. One player of the batting team stands in front of the wicket – ready to defend it.

The bowler stands at one end of the pitch and tries to break the wicket from a distance. As a weapon serves him a small ball. The batsman must fend off the ball with the bat. If he uses the hand, he leaves. A dismissed batsman (out!) is replaced by a new one until only one is left.

… there were only ten …

The new substitute batsman has to hit the ball as far away as possible. The nine fielders, who distribute themselves in the oval, dive after the ball. If one of them catches the ball before it hits the ground, then – another batsman is gone.

Meanwhile, the two batsmen on the field are running towards the opposite end of the pitch. If they get behind the white lines (crease), they made a run and the team gets a point. They can run back and forth as often as they want, but usually they do not do it more often than three times. It’s exhausting enough.

Without any effort, the batting team can collect six points if the ball is hit across the field without touching the ground. If he bounces and rolls off the field, there get only four points. The winner at the very end is also the team with the most points (runs).

… there were only eight …

Running back and forth and jumping behind the line is not as easy as it sounds. Because behind each wicket is a player (wicket keeper) of the field team positioned, who is just waiting for someone to throw him the ball so that he can destroy the small wooden structure. If at least one of the crossbars rolls down before the batsman manages to get behind the line, he unfortunately has to leave the field.

Now the batting team has only seven players left. Each bowler has six throws, a so-called over, to let his destructive skills run free. Always from the same end of the pitch to the same batsman. After an over the bowler changes, which throws then also from the other side of the pitch to the other batsman. Nobody should be worn out.

A batsman has exactly three minutes to prepare for a new throw, otherwise he will be sent off the field due to a timeout and – there were only six left.

Tea break

Cricket has an official tea break. Time to mention some other rules. How do you actually bowl (you don’t throw a ball in cricket)? The rules state that the throwing arm, once he has reached shoulder height, may not be straightened. Which means that he is already straightened at this altitude. Who can’t master this acrobatics, should not start with the cricket, because all other methods of bowling are invalid.

In addition, the ball must not hit the player of the hitting team above the waist, unless he has previously touched the ground. Practically, this rule makes it difficult for the batsman to hit the ball. Who can control exactly one shot when the ball bounces off the ground a millimetre in front of your own feet and hits you?

If a batsman destroys his own wicket, for instance because he becomes incredibly angry because he has again failed to hit the ball or loses his patience after four days of play, he is out and – voilà – there were only five left.

Although this is unlikely, because cricket is a very civilized game. Also obstructing the bowling and fielding side means dismissal – there were only four.

The same fate awaits a player when he touches the ball twice. A bad shot is a bad shot, and it can not be improved. Only three batsmen left.

Unless the last one proved that he really only wanted to defend his wicket with the second hit. Then he may stay in. But suppose his reasoning was flawed: then only two players need to be eliminated. The end is near, but it gets complicated!

… there were only two more …

It is hot, terribly hot, the sweat is not dripping from the forehead, it is flowing. Four days of playing are behind the boys. The brain suffers from the sun, the sense of balance as well. That’s how you could imagine it. The ball flies, the batsman tries to beat, staggers, steps in front of the line, but failed to hit! The wicket keeper catches the ball and thus destroys the wicket before the batsman is back behind the line. Oh dear – there were only two left.

The next bowl. Temperatures just do not drop and concentration decreases. The batsman misses the ball again, but his leg is in the way and fends off the ball. Bingo – this batsman is also eliminated.

Namely, if the batsman misses the ball but the ball would have hit the wicket, if it had not been stopped by the batsman’s body, then the batman is out. LBW, ‘Leg before wicket’, is the name of this variant because it is usually the leg of the batsman blocking the way. Now there is only one left and that is the end of the innings (that’s what one of the divisions of a cricket match is called, during which one team takes its turn to bat).

Now, the two teams swap their tasks and complete their innings as bowling/fielding or batting team. A match can consist of two or four innings.

The post Cricket Rules – simplified appeared first on GoAustralia.

Cricket in the summer school holidays

Around Christmas, one can hardly escape cricket – at least on television and in pubs. There is always a game on. “The Ashes” for example is an international cricket match between Australia and England. It takes place twice within 4 years and each consists of five tests, i.e. all day for 25 days (!) one can watch a competition between only 2 countries. You have to imagine Germany and England playing football all day long for 25 days … And even though the players are more active at football (which people also refer to as soccer in Australia), that would surely be boring after a few days and some players would have collapsed. Thus, there is a reason that the players hardly move in cricket, otherwise they would not be able to survive the tests.

Test Cricket generally is played three times two hours a day for five consecutive days. Mostly Test Cricket is held in series of two to six games, in short: it takes weeks for the procedure to be over. Meanwhile, there is a variant in which the game has adapted to the medial habits and shortened it to one day. It ends after a set number of overs, usually 50.

Cricket as seen by Bill Bryson

To describe cricket is not easy. In my opinion, the American travel writer Bill Bryson gave the best picture of cricket in his book “Down Under: Travels in a Sunburned Country“. Overall, the book is highly recommended for anyone who wants to get a good impression of Australia in a fun way. Bill Bryson is a good observer and describes the peculiarities and characteristics of a country (and cricket) perfectly.

“The Sturt Highway begins near Wagga Wagga, a hundred miles or so west of Canberra, and crosses broad, flat, dust-brown country known as the Riverina, an area of plains cut by the fidgety meanderings of the Murrumbidgee River. It provides a perfect demonstration in three dimensions of how swiftly you can be in the middle of nowhere in Australia. One minute I was in a comely world of paddocks, meadows and pale green hills, with little country towns scattered at reliably accommodating intervals, and the next I was alone in an almost featureless nowhere – a disc of brown earth under a dome of blue sky, with only an occasional gum interposed between the two. Such habitations as I passed through weren’t really communities at all, but just a couple of houses and a petrol station, occasionally a pub, and eventually even they all but ceased. Between Narrandera, the last outpost of civilization, and Balranald, the next, lay 200 miles of highway without a town or hamlet on it. Every hour or so I would pass a lonely roadhouse – a petrol station with an attached cafe of the sort known in the happy vernacular of Australia as a chew and spew – and occasionally an earthen track bumping off to a distant, unseen sheep station. Otherwise nothing.

As if to emphasize the isolation, all the area radio stations began to abandon me. One by one their signals faltered, and all those smoky voices so integral to Australian airwaves – Vic Damone, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra at the mindless height of his doo-bee-doo phase – faded away, as if being drawn by some heavy gravity back into the hole from which they had escaped. Eventually the radio dial presented only an uninterrupted cat’s hiss of static, but for one clear spot near the end of the dial. At first I thought that’s all it was – just an empty clear spot – but then I realized I could hear the faint shiftings and stirrings of seated people, and after quite a pause a voice, clam and reflective, said:

‘Pilchard begins his long run in from short stump. He bowls and …oh, he’s out! Yes, he’s got him. Longwilley is caught leg-before in middle slops by Grattan. Well, now what do you make of that, Neville?’

‘That’s definitely one for the books, Bruce. I don’t think I’ve seen offside medium slow fast pace bowling to match it since Baden-Powell took Rangachangabanga for a maiden ovary at Bangalore in 1948.’

I had stumbled into the surreal and rewarding world of cricket on the radio.

After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with the game that the introduction of golf carts wouldn’t fix in a hurry.

It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side-effect. I don’t wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game.

It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players (more if they are moderately restless). It is the only competitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning.

Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each delivery. collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with it out to centre field; and that there, after a minute’s pause to collect himself, he turns and runs full tilt towards the pitcher’s mound before hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before him wearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to handle radioactive isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg.

Imagine moreover that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartens him sufficiently to waddle sixty feet with mattresses strapped to his legs he is under no formal compulsion to run; he may stand there all day, and, as a rule, does. If by some miracle he is coaxed into making a misstroke that leads him to being put out, all the fielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a big hug. Then tea is called and everyone retires happily to a distant pavilion to fortify for the next siege. Now imagine all this going on for so long that by the time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your library books are overdue.

There you have cricket.

But it must be said that there is something incomparably soothing about cricket on the radio. It has much the same virtues as baseball on the radio – an unhurried pace, a comforting devotion to abstruse statistics and thoughtful historical rumination, exhilarating micromoments of real action – but stretched across many more hours and with a lushness of terminology and restful elegance of expression that even baseball cannot match. Listening to cricket on the radio is like listening to two men sitting in a rowing boat on a large, placid lake on a day when the fish aren’t biting; it’s like having a nap without losing consciousness. It actually helps not to know quite what’s going on. In such a rarefied world of contentment and inactivity, comprehension would become a distraction.

‘So here comes Stovepipe to bowl on this glorious summer’s afternoon at the MCG,’ one of the commentators was saying now. ‘I wonder if he’ll chance an offside drop scone here or go for the quick legover. Stovepipe has an unusual delivery in that he actually leaves the grounds and starts his run just outside the Carlton & United Brewery at Kooyong.’

‘That’s right Clive. I haven’t known anyone start his delivery that far back since Stopcock caught his sleeve on the reversing mirror of a number 11 bus during the third test at Brisbane in 1957 and ended up at Goondiwindi four hours later owing to a changed timetable at Toowoomba Junction.’

After a very long silence while they absorbed this thought, and possibly stepped out to transact some small errands, they resumed with a leisurely discussion of the England fielding. Neasden, it appeared, was turning in a solid performance at square bowel, while Packet had been a stalwart in the dribbles, though even these exemplary performances paled when set beside the outstanding play of

young Hugh Twain-Buttocks at middle nipple. The commentators were in calm agreement that they had not seen anyone caught behind with such panache since Tandoori took Rogan Josh for a stiffy at Vindaloo in ’61. At last Stovepipe, having found his way across the railway line at Flinders Street – the footbridge was evidently closed for painting – returned to the stadium and bowled to Hasty, who deftly turned the ball away for a corner. This was repeated four times more over the next two hours and then one of the commentators pronounced: ‘So as we break for second luncheon, and with 11,200 balls remaining, Australia are 962 for two not half and England are four for a duck and hoping for rain.’

I may not have all the terminology exactly right, but I believe I have caught the flavour of it.

The upshot was that Australia was giving England a good thumping, but then Australia pretty generally does. In fact Australia generally beats most people at most things. Truly never has there been a more sporting nation. In the 1996 Olympics at Atlanta, to take just one random but illustrative example, Australia, the fifty-second largest nation in the world, brought home more medals than all but four other countries, all of them much larger (the countries of course, not the medals). Measured by population, its performance was streets ahead of anybody else. Australians won 3.78 medals per millions of population, a rate more than two and a half times better than the next best performer, Germany, and almost five times the rate of the United States. Moreover, Australia’s medal-winning tally was distributed across a range of sports, fourteen, matched by only one other nation, the United States. Hardly a sport exists in which Australians do not excel. Do you know, there are even forty Australians playing baseball at the professional level in the United States, including five in the Major Leagues – and Australians don’t even play baseball, at least not in any particularly devoted manner. They do this on the world stage and play their own games as well, notably a very popular form of loosely contained mayhem called Australian Rules Football. It is a wonder in such a vigorous and active society that there is anyone left to form an audience.

No, the mystery of cricket is not that Australians play it well, but that they play it at all. It has always seemed to me a game much too restrained for the rough-and-tumble Australian temperament. Australians much prefer games in which brawny men in scanty clothing bloody each other’s noses. I am quite certain that if the rest of the world vanished overnight and the development of cricket was left in Australian hands, within a generation the players would be wearing shorts and using the bats to hit each other.

And the thing is, it would be a much better game for it.

In the late afternoon, while the players broke for high tea or fifth snack or something – in any case, when the activity on the field went from very slight to non-existent – I stopped at a roadhouse for petrol and coffee. I studied my book of maps and determined that I would stop for the night in Hay, a modest splat in the desert a little off the highway a couple of hours down the road. As it was the only community in a space of 200 miles, this was not a particularly taxing decision. Then, having nothing better to do, I leafed through the index and amused myself, in a very low-key way, by looking for ridiculous names, of which Australia has a respectable plenitude. I am thus able to report that the following are all real places: Wee Waa, Poowong, Burrumbuttock, Suggan Buggan, Boomahnoomoonah, Waaia, Mullumbimby, Ewlyamartup, Jiggalong and the supremely satisfying Tittybong.

As I paid, the man asked me where I was headed.

‘Hay,’ I replied, and was struck by a sudden droll thought. ‘And I’d better hurry. Do you know why?’

He gave me a blank look.

‘Because I want to make Hay while the sun shines.’

The man’s expression did not change.

‘I want to make Hay while the sun shines,’ I repeated with a slight alteration of emphasis and a more encouraging expression.

The blank look, I realized after a moment, was permanent.

‘Aw. you won’t have any trouble with that,’ the man said after a minute’s considered thought. ‘It’ll be light for hours yet.’

Hay was a hot and dusty but surprisingly likeable little town off the Sturt Highway across an old bridge over the muddy Murrumbidgee. In the motel, I dumped my bag and reflexively turned on the TV. It came up on the cricket, and I sat on the foot of the bed and watched it with unwonted absorption for some minutes. Needless to say, very little was happening on the pitch. An official in a white coat was chasing after a blown piece of paper and several of the players were examining the ground by the stumps, evidently looking for something. I couldn’t think what, but then one of the commentators noted that England had just lost a wicket, so I supposed it was that.

After a long time a lanky young man in the outfield, who had been polishing a ball on his trouser leg as if about to take a bite from it, broke into a loping run. At length the hurled the ball at the distant batsman, who insouciantly lifted his bat an inch from the ground and putted it back to him. These motions were scrupulously replicated three times more, then the commentator said: ‘And so at the end of the four hundred and fifty-second over, as we break for afternoon nap, England have increased their total to seventeen. So still quite a lot of work for them to do if they’re going to catch Australia before fourth snack.’

…

I was back in my room by about nine thirty. I switched the TV and was impressed to see that play was still going on. Give the cricketers their due. It may be light work but they put in the hours. The man in the white coat was still chasing paper, though it wasn’t possible to tell if it was the same piece. England, according to the commentator, had lost another three wickets, which seemed rather absent-minded of them, At this rate they would soon run out of equipment altogether and have to call it a day.

Perhaps, I decided as I switched the TV off, that was what they were hoping for.

…

Still, the parks remain lovely for the moment and I was happy to pass into them now. They were packed with large family groups enjoying Australia Day, picnicking and playing cricket with tennis balls. Adelaide has miles of good beaches in its western suburbs, so it surprised me that such numbers of people had forsaken the shore to come into the city. It gave the day an engagingly old-fashioned air.

This is how we spent the Fourth of July when I was a kid in Iowa – in parks, playing ball games. It seemed odd, too- but again pleasing – that in a country of so much space people chose to crowd together to relax. Perhaps it’s all that intimidating emptiness that makes Australians such social creatures. The parks were so crowded, in fact, that it was often impossible to tell which fielders belonged to which ball game. When a ball bounced into a neighbouring party, as seemed to happen quite regularly, there was always an exchange of apologies on the one hand and a call of ‘No worries’ on the other as the ball was tossed back into play. It was effectively all one very large picnic, and I felt almost ridiculously pleased to be part of it even in such a marginal way.

It took about three hours, I suppose, to do the complete circuit of the parks. Quite often a roar would arise from the Oval. Cricket was obviously a livelier spectacle in person than on the radio. At length I emerged onto a street called Pennington Terrace, where a row of neat bluestone houses with shady lawns overlooked the Oval. At one a family had essentially moved its living room onto the front lawn. I know it can’t have been so, but in my recollection they had brought out everything – floor lamps, coffee table, rug, magazine basket, coal scuttle. They had certainly brought out a sofa, and a television on which they were watching the cricket. Behind the television, a couple of hundred yards away across open parkland, stood the Oval, so that whenever anything dramatic happened on their screen it was accompanied in real time by a roar from the stadium just beyond.

‘Who’s winning?’ I called as I walked past.

‘Bloody poms,’ them man said, inviting me to share in his amazement.”

Bill Bryson, Down Under (2000)

The post Cricket appeared first on GoAustralia.