Australian National Indoor Cricket Championships, Perth 2011

(this post first appeared on the Dusty Dingo Photography Blog)

I love Cricket (please note, for the purposes of this post, the definition of Cricket does NOT include that Twenty20 advertising-dressed-up-as-sport rubbish. Come to think of it, for ANY purpose, the definition of Cricket should never include Twenty20).

So I'll say it again . . . I LOVE Cricket.

Test Cricket in particular.

If there is a sport with more variety, nuance, excitement, grace, personality, power and intrigue than Test Cricket, I'll eat my one piece of that indispensable equipment affectionately known as "the box". Non-cricketing folk probably should not seek explanation. Trust me.

Of course, not all of us can play Test Cricket. After all, even some who are selected for Test Cricket can't play it. So we play our own version, usually demanding not five full days (like Test Cricket), but one or two, sometimes taking the whole weekend, sometimes spread over two weekends.

As we move through the years, sports that demand a whole weekend (like Cricket), or even just a whole day of the weekend (like Cricket) are pushed aside for other pursuits that demand at least some of our weekends (like Life). So we either give up playing our beloved sport, or we find alternatives. In Australia and New Zealand (and to a lesser degree South Africa and the UK, and to an even lesser degree India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), that alternative is often Indoor Cricket.

New Zealand Under 19 girls celebrate a wicket against tournament  favourites Australia. New Zealand eventually eliminated Australia from  the finals and played the Grand Final against ultimate Under 19 Girl  champions, South Africa.
2003 Indoor Cricket World Under 19 Championships, Christchurch, New Zealand

Now, I'm not going to explain Indoor Cricket here, when I've already done that comprehensively here at Indoor Cricket World

And I'm not going to discuss the finer points of photographing this sport--that is a future project I'm working on.
 
What I am doing is letting those interested know that Indoor Cricket World contains the largest collection of original Indoor Cricket Photography on the web. For newcomers to the sport, I also have a small selection of International Indoor Cricket tournament photographs here

But mainly, I'm letting readers know that Dusty Dingo Photography is covering the upcoming Australian National Indoor Cricket Championships, and will feature the photographs of the whole tournament on its pages.

Stay tuned.