Cricket lovers and haters

 

If Jim Jarmursch doesn't get me divorced, the Black Caps might do it one day.

I think it's important that you still have your own interest as a couple. I've been with the love of my life for 15 years now, and I love her more than ever, but we still can't agree on everything. There are movies I love that she abhors, and she watches TV shows that I find morally reprehensible and maddeningly addictive. It's all good - if we all liked the same things, this world would be boring.

So I love cricket, and I love test cricket most of all, all five fucking days of it. It's the perfect background sport when you're getting on with your day, and then suddenly, hours and hours of perseverance can come down to split second timing. I'm still dealing with that dead ball ricocheting off Ben Stokes' bat that unfairly lost the Black Caps the last world cup, but absolutely demolishing Pakistan in the last series still felt good.

She doesn't get any of it, and that's a perfectly valid response. It's not for everyone. She thinks it's staggeringly boring and needlessly complicated and totally ridiculous, and I can't argue with any of that.

But now we've got a little one that I can infect with cricket and take to games and sit and watch during those big moments. The wife might not like it, and will maintain a righteous position as a full-time cricket hater, but we can still outnumber her.