Posted by AP Webster writes…
You may recall my parents’ cat, Dusty, from his indifference to the Boxing Day Test back in 2019.
What with the whole global pandemic business, this weekend* (during which we have celebrated a Big Birthday for an important family member, and crucially also the first weekend I’ve been able to go into my parents’ house) has been the first opportunity for quite some time to check if Dusty has revised his stance on cricket.
This image, showing his instant response to even the channel being switched over to Sky Sports Cricket, seems conclusive evidence in this regard.
* Regular readers will be aware that “this weekend” is not a term to be taken too literally given the famously relaxed King Cricket publication schedule when it comes to reader submissions.
If you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk.
Compared to the gap between the initial Boxing Day Test submission and publication (during which a whole novel Coronavirus managed to spread from China, cancelling a load of cricket and ultimately changing life forever), this is practically live reporting.
I do worry that purists might balk at the inclusion of this in “animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket” given that Dusty appears to be going beyond pure indifference. However, to confirm that we’d need to see the counterfactual – would he have behaved any differently if the channel had been one that wasn’t showing cricket? If so, then it could be argued that he was – technically – indifferent to the cricket itself.
I am all in favour of liberal interpretations of the term “animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket”, APW, so personally I have no problem with the depiction of Dusty’s disdainful stance in this category. Especially good to see old friends returning to our screens for more conspicuous stuff.
More guest pieces like this please, KC, although of course you don’t do requests.
Well done you, APW; top reportage.
Belatedly, it occurs to me that during my son’s little league season, I have missed a couple of opportunities to document an “animal conspicuously indifferent to baseball”, which might be somewhat off-brief.
We have one game remaining in the season, so I may attempt to remedy this. I just need to remember to take a photo. Or perhaps I’ll have to write 1000 words.
Reckon we’d be willing to deploy the crowbar for that.
Lamentably, the pet rabbit did not attend our final game. She’d been brought to the previous couple in a nifty little backpack thing and then hung out in a little run, but rather than taking an interest in the game, she did a good job of distracting our players from it.
He looks like he is about to jump.
‘Dusty spring fielder.’
Just to be clear, he was about to jump. He jumped.