Cricketer's Wife

Australia’s cricket season ends in April. And with it comes a breather for us partners. No more weekends solo-parenting. No more having to juggle social engagements around matches. No more coordinating lifts and who has the car. Winter weekends mean more time together and lazier days.

Or at least, that’s how it usually is. But not this year.

This year, my other half announced that his club had entered a winter season league and he intended to play.

He assured me it would be fine and very different to the summer season because:

• all of the games are one-dayers so he wouldn’t have to commit to two weekends on the trot
• the fixtures are fortnightly rather than weekly
• the games are on Sundays rather than Saturdays. (I’m not sure why one day is better than the other, and I didn’t ask him to elaborate. The fact he needs to be back on a Sunday morning to play cricket rules out any trips away on those weekends.)

His final argument for the perks of winter league is that even though they’re one-dayers, the match probably won’t go the whole day so he’ll be home by mid-afternoon anyway. I’ll update shortly on whether that was the case or not.

Generally, I think I’m a very chill cricket wife. As someone who grew up in a household where her dad was away for entire weekends, every weekend for the whole summer means I get it—I get the enjoyment, the mateship, the ups and downs of the game. So why wouldn’t people want to keep that going through the winter months if given the chance?

But I have to admit, I felt a bit peeved at the thought of cricket games, and training, and socialising being factored into our weekend plans. That there wouldn’t be the winter breathing space we usually have.

Flashback: Winter cricket in the UK was very different (Obviously)

As far as I can remember, the team my Dad played for only entered a winter league once. And because it was in the UK, where winter really does mean winter, the matches were played inside, in a soulless sports hall under fluro lights. And, if my memory serves me right, they were in the evenings.

I was only taken along to one or two of the games. Turns out that is was pretty boring for a little kid. There wasn’t the outdoor running around space I was used to from the summer months. And no other kids to chat with. So when I got bored of watching the game (which a 10 year old inevitably does) there wasn’t much for me to do except get snacks from the vending machine.

How I actually found the winter season vs how I thought it would be

I was originally going to write about my annoyance at the winter games at the start of the season, when I was feeling peeved and full of prejudice. But I’m glad I held off, because you know what? It wasn’t actually that bad and I wonder if some of my apprehension stemmed from the crappy encounter I had with the indoor league as a kid?

On the whole, my partner was right. The games impacted us very little and, thoughtfully, he only put himself down to play if we didn’t have (or didn’t want) to make any other plans for the weekend that games were on.

It also turns out that watching cricket on a fine winter day in Queensland is bloody lovely. It’s warm, but not too hot so there’s no need to slather yourself in sunscreen every 20-minutes because you sweated the last lot off.

The kid and I enjoyed a few lazy afternoons running around the outfields watching the games and not stressing about overheating or getting burnt. I might even go so far as saying that I preferred the winter games.

But…

My husband’s theory about the games finishing early and taking less time than the summer season games? Well.

Completely untrue. By my watch they were about the same. He’d be down the ground for a 9:30 am set up and by the time beers were done, would need picking up at 4 or 5 pm.

And so at time of publishing there’s about a week to go until the summer games kick off, which means the inevitable birthday clash.