Living in a Tropical Paradise

July 2005 - Kirikiti

While in Savaii we happened upon a ‘kirikiti’ match between two local villages and tried to figure out the rules and scoring of this version of cricket through observation and a stilted conversation with a player (who by the way was ‘fielding’ in the middle of the road). There were several balls in play - for when one got hit into the sea or somewhere difficult to access. The bowling took place from either end, seemingly dependent on where the ball ended up in the field the previous hit/bowl and was bowled by the nearest person to the stumps at each end at the time. The gigantic bats seemed quite heavy and would often send the ball straight into the air – though being caught didn’t seem to be the end of the batters turn. Occasionally, the batsmen would run and the scoring was kept in the players’ heads, though I think they were yelling out the scores every now and then. At one point there was a round of synchronised clapping for a minute or so by the players – no idea what for – but it sounded cool. Not sure how long the games go on for as we felt the beach calling us and we headed up to our accommodation on the north of the island.

posted by N-Lo @ 3:42 pm