69

The number of people who browse through cricket websites during a world cup soccer aren't many; I'm one of them, though. I do follow the soccer, though, in my own way. For example, I support Australia, New Zealand and South Africa against heavy odds for the simple reason that they play cricket.

Anyway, I was browsing through Cricinfo as I was cheering for New Zealand when they pulled off an almost-last-minute equaliser against Slovakia. I came across this match, and was somewhat confused to realise that the Mexican bowling attack could well pass as Indian one if you consider only names (they also had a curiously named Theodore Wucherpfennig).

It seemed that I had missed out on the real stuff on the scorecard, something that someone brought to my notice today:

Two of the Costa Rica cricketers were 48 (one of them, Timothy Baker opened batting and bowled first change); one of them was 54; one was 59; but the real stunner was someone called Richard Illingworth, who was 69 years and 267 days old when he played the match. I mean, who plays international cricket at 69?

I hope Bryan Adams makes a sequel some day.

***

PS: Even Mexico had a 47-year old member, and Wucherpfennig, my favourite Mexican cricketer by now, is 51. But then, they had the audacity to include a few players below 30 as well: the Costa Ricans, obviously, didn't engage themselves in such blasphemy: their youngest member was close to 31.