also, at the end of the day, is is a is a national hero from his days as a as national hero from his days as a as a cricket star. That certainly is that a cricket star. That certainly is uh this helps and uh you know he's you knowhelps. And you know, he's he's really been a he's he's really been a very effective very effective 21st century political
Not all of them-- all of us-- are gifted with the same, barring you people sitting here. Cricket was a passion for me.But some or the other, I got into engineering.
the industry as well and it was time for his performance appraisal and he swaggers into my room collar is raised cricket and who know and there are many in India you would know this that 1989
And-- Obviously, yes. If you can't tell all ready. Cricket . Sports. How many sailors were on the ship.
researching the book I happened to be in London and I don't know if any of you follow Cricket I don't really follow a cricket but when you're in London you sort of can't help it and while I was there the Pakistani Cricket coach Bobwolmer died under mysterious circumstances uh and so the speculation at first was
in here is about people there who train and fight crickets and people who have a deep knowledge about crickets . Cricket fighting in China has a history that goes back nearly a thousand years and I go on to some detail about this in the book.And the part that I want to read you describes some of what I learned from a very experienced cricket trainer that I met there, a man called
pots and in an emphatic response to my increasingly unimaginative line of questioning, took his yard grass straw and barked orders at the cricket as if it as soldier -- this way, that way.This way, that way. And the insect, to Michael's and my real astonishment, responded unhesitatingly turning left, right, left,
And here I was tapping my pencil and my pen like, really? Crickets . And I was almost in tears.Of course. I was like, I wrote this book and nobody wants to buy it or read it.
And it's like nobody heard it. Crickets . Right? And then two minutes later a guy repeats exactly what you just said, and everybody just turns to him.They're like, Dave, great idea you had, Dave.
So what we did is we just kind of did a shotgun approach to see what kind of vomeronasal receptor genes were present in lemurs, and particularly mouse lemurs. crickets can go out and collect thousands of crickets in their backyard.
fighting potential, they use a taxonomy that first appeared in Jia Shi-Dao's Book of Crickets , a 900-year old manual of training and raising crickets that's been modified and supplemented but not overthrown across the centuries. The book outlines the fiercely complex systemfor classifying crickets . It brings request body color.
and he couldn't remember and if he cricketers when they beat the Australians in
Clearly, you're a Hall of Famer in that sport, but situate what that means externally. Australian cricket , obviously my family is from the West Indies, so I understand cricket , but I don't have a sense of how special to the Australian narrative is Australian football. Yeah, So this is a game that obviously we've created, and I have a very strong connection being a very proud aboriginal man s o. This game
And it can be even more complex than that. about cricket . But there's two really interesting things about that.
So I promised them that, you know, I will finish my degree, and I will do well. But cricket came alongside and I was doing decently well, reasonably well. You know, played for Karnataka under 23s, and then I played for Karnataka juniors.
The insect's skin must be dry, that is, it must reflect light from inside itself not from the surface. It must also be delicate, like a baby's. The cricket 's walk must be swift and easy. It should not have a rolling gait. In general, strength is more important than size.
must create the conditions in which the insect can be happy. A cricket knows when it is loved and it knows when it's well cared for. And it responds in kind with loyalty, courage, obedience, and the signs of quiet contentment. In practical terms, this as quid pro quo,
Yes. Yes. And so probably May, April time 2017, we started to think about what she might look like. Googling crickets . I had no idea there were so many different kinds of crickets . There were some freaky looking things like camouflaged ones, ones that were like hideous aliens.
And that went over like a led balloon? Totally crickets . And then I was like, I don't need these guys. Yeah. There you go.
Many found companionship in cicadas or other musical insects that they kept in bamboo cages and slim pocket boxes. And young people, not just the middle-aged, played crickets , learning how to recognize the three races and 72 personalities, how to judge a likely champion, how to train the fighters to their fullest potential. How to use the pencil-thin brushes made of yard grass or mouse whisker to stimulate the insects jaws and provoke
And then caddis flies, and crane flies, and vinegar flies, and botflies, and dragonflies, and mayflies, and houseflies, and so many other flies. Then one thing led to another and I came across field crickets and Mole crickets and Jerusalem crickets . And then my friend Jessie sent me a Weta from New Zealand and then the 17-year cicadas emerged in Ohio. And I discovered the thrips and katydids,
And it means that it's quite easy either to see exhibition matches of that kind or else you can go to markets, open air markets, where people sell crickets . And people go, you know obviously people are there buying crickets and you can see crickets in that context. And people have -- people have put on cricket fights there where they're just trying to show the strength of the crickets that they're
If I run into someone who I think may speak Urdu, I'll racially profile them. Root for Pakistan in cricket . Pakistan and India are playing on Saturday-- on Sunday, in New York, yeah.
were watching cricket have obviously paid off yes
Such a craze about cricket in India.
And even as the crickets came back in numbers, there was no longer any cricket song.
So this poor cricket has been parasitized by the fly.
And I was cricket crazy.
I'm the Puppetry Director and Puppet Co-designer for "Pinocchio" at the National Theatre. Audrey plays Jiminy Cricket , does the voice, and is one half of the puppeteering team. And James is the other half of the puppeteering team.
So the scale is really shifted in Pinocchio's favor and so the audience kind of see the world through Pinocchio's eyes. And Jiminy Cricket originally was a bit of a sort of question mark. It's such a kind of iconic character really.
And he's also the joint highest wicket taker for India in World Cups at 44. He retired from cricket , like I said, in 2003. And he has continued his life in that world as an ICC match referee.
Whenever I didn't do well in studies, I said, well, it is the cricket which is really coming in the way and I had to spend more cricket there. And so whenever I didn't get wickets, I used to say it's because of my engineering.
I mean, it's not that I can't play for India. I can never play cricket if things don't go right. I can never bowl again in my life.
You will be fatalistic in your thinking at times. Then you realize that cricket is not the only thing in your life. Then probably my focus on the other side of life also grew a bit.
We have cricket . So yeah.
the industry as well and it was time for his performance appraisal and he swaggers into my room collar is raised considered the god of cricket and he had nothing to prove even then he would go to the Nets half an hour before
Or in cricket terms, it's "Googly." "Googly." So as you can see, we have a ton of what we call Googlers.
He used to play cricket .
You have the cricket field where people are able to come together for games.
I like cricket . I like soccer.
He was like Jiminy Cricket guiding Pinocchio down the right path.
These are actual paid cricket seats at a cricket match.
world of cricket or the the world of social entertainment Etc also there might be some questions
which a collection of 26 chapters one for each letter of the alphabet in which he considers insects and our cultural relation to them. Moving from cricket fighting in China to dances with bees from insects at 15,000 feet to fighting fruit flies. He's written a very engaging exploration of our relationship to the physical world.
animated storytelling, his throaty laugh. Michael, my translator, and I are drawn to him immediately and hang on his words. Master Fung is a cricket master, confides his assistant Miss Jao. He has 40-years' experience. There is no one more crickets . Twenty years ago, everyone tells us, before
spirit. This indispensable quality is revealed only at the moment the insect enters the arena. Though a cricket might look like a champion in all respects, though the judgment of its physical qualities may be correct, it can still turn out to lack spirit in competition. This, he insists, is less a matter of individual cricket 's character than a function of its care.
And it responds in kind with loyalty, courage, obedience, and the signs of quiet contentment. In practical terms, this as quid pro quo, because a happy cricket is amenable to training and as its health, skill, and confidence increase under the trainer's care, so too does its fighting spirit. And as he was explaining all this, describing the sexual regiment he provides, outlining the many symptoms of ill-health
with it. And so there are a lot of people who are trying to encourage, particularly encourage young people, to be interested in that. And to develop -- to develop their skills in judging cricket -- and judging crickets and raising them and training them in a -- sort of in a format which is the separate from the gambling culture which has been associated with it actually right from the beginning. I'm not sure how successful they're going to be at doing that but they're quite serious about doing it.
Let's do cricket . And we've done cricket and then we can do golf. And then have a play these games anymore, we found out who's the best at golf.
it's crickets and I think we're going to hit the iceberg really hard.