At the Cricket!

In late January, I went with some friends from Couch Surfing to my first ever cricket match! A friend of a friend happens to be a member of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and we were able to go with him to the members area. It was so interesting; despite everyone saying how boring cricket is, I thought it was really cool and fun! My friend explained the rules to me so I could follow the game.
The match we saw was the Melbourne Stars vs. Adelaide. It was a Twenty20 match, so I think the rules differ slightly than test cricket. Now, I'm certainly no expert and only saw that one game which was months ago, so I may be completely wrong, but this is how I remember it:
They have a pitcher (they call him a bowler) and someone batting (kind of like baseball). The bowler tosses the ball, and the batter hits it. After the ball is hit, the batter has to run as many times as he can between two posts and the teams are scored by how many runs they get in between the time when the ball is hit and when it is caught. And that's the game! I'm probably missing tons of important details, but that's what I understood, and I was able to follow pretty well for a first timer (I think)!

Play ball!

Me and Tom, my cricket teacher!

Cricket is fun with friends!

My first meat pie! Australians love them and eat them at all the sporting events!

Group shot!

The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG)

I'm pretty sure Melbourne won this game

Group shot in the members lounge!

Ladies love cricket!

We had so much fun watching the game from the members area, but then we got bored and wandered down into Bay 13, which is notorious for being fun and rowdy! The fans will throw beach balls, evade security, make waves, chant cricket things, and have a good time!

Beach ball! You're actually not supposed to throw them around. It was fun seeing them try to keep it away from security!

There's another one!

The view from Bay 13

Bay 13!

The members area we were in before

There was a cricket at the cricket!

I love how when Australians refer to sporting events, they always say that they are going to "the" cricket; "the" footy, etc. It's one of the many endearing quirks I've found about them since coming here!