Man Recreates Classic Cricket Moments with His Cat

ByHenry Steinman Posted on Updated on

Source: © Shutterstock

As much as we used to look forward to weekends, every day now is like a Saturday, and people are tired of being indoors all day. Whoever said that when we rest, our energy is restored should have added that too much rest is not suitable for the body. When the only movement at home is between different rooms in the house, being creative is the only way to survive the boredom and we will do anything to find new tips. For this reason, when a man recreates classic cricket moments with his cat, you must be curious to know how he did it so here is the full story.

It all began as an effort to amuse himself

With too much on his hands, Andrew Miller thought he could keep his children entertained by introducing playtime with his cat. Therefore, besides playing ping pong with Lola, his cat, during the first week of lockdown, Andrew’s playtime with Lola evolved to cat cricket. Before long, racked memory backs and YouTube rabbit holes came into the picture as published on ESPNcricinfo. The idea came from Chris Lee, who wrote on Twitter that he had invented Cat Cricket in which his cat had to defend a box from a ping pong ball. His cat earned a point by batting the ball away, whereas Chris would get a point if the ball hit the cardboard. The game would then continue until a winner was found, and that meant whoever was first to get ten points. The video Chris uploaded of his cat batting the ball away from the box had attracted 105K likes, and 22.6K people were talking about it by March 14, 2020. Currently, it has 2 million views and 19.9K retweets.

Recreating the classic moments

Andrew Miller was among the many viewers who were impressed by Chris’s cat’s cricket skills, and he thought about Lola, whom he describes as having the requisite sadistic temper. Unfortunately, Lola was not in the mood for the game, and the balls seemed not to be perfect for recreating classic cricket moments; ping pongs were challenging to control, tennis balls bounced too much while squash balls were too skiddy. As a result, although Andrew was passionate about reliving the Ball of the Century by Shane Warne, he gave up after realizing it was too perfect of a moment to recreate. Instead, Andrew opted to go with Steve Harmison’s wide in Brisbane, which he recreated in one shot.

Lola was still not interested in helping Andrew with his cause; thus, the editor went ahead to recreate more realistic but imperfect classic moments, including Moeen Ali’s hat trick delivery in 2017, Graeme Swann’s shocker in 2013 among many more. For Andrew, despite all these successful recreations, nothing beat the duel between Robin Smith and Courtney Walsh in 1989-90 in Antigua. His pride did not last long because Lola could not compete with Loki, Adrian Mirfakhrai’s cat, whose ability to imitate Ben Stoke’s winning boundary was impressive. All the same, although Loki looked unbothered with the ball at first but later gained momentum, Andrew is not convinced that Lola will change her attitude. Consequently, he is thinking of starting another hobby, of course, this time without involving Lola.

The importance of play for cats

Cats are said to be introverted; hence playtime may prove to be too much and intrusive into their alone time. According to Catster, some cats will even ignore your efforts to play and only want to be playful in their terms. Still, the article adds that the felines need to be active since it stimulates them mentally and helps to develop a closer bond with the owners.

Moreover, cats are predators, and they even play with their food; you must have seen your cat catch a rat and then release it only to run after it and catch it again. To them, it is instinctive to be predators, but even if your home does not have rats, you can ensure your cat taps his predatory side by introducing tangible toys. Therefore instead of letting him “catch” the red dot from a laser pointer, how about a toy that moves and has a remote control. Let him catch it once in a while and praise the excellent efforts to instill that sense of pride in knowing that he is a good hunter.

Besides bonding with you through play, a cat will also learn how to be social and avoid aggression when with other cats or people. It is especially crucial in a home with children for the cats to learn to be more patient with the children who might want to pet it. Moreover, although your cat needs to recharge its batteries, it first needs to have them drained, and there is no better way to kill their boredom than through play. Best of all, you do not want an obese cat in your house since that implies more medical bills or early death for your cat, so keep your feline friend healthy through various activities.

Games you can play with your cat

You do not have to be like Andrew, recreating classic cricket moments; you can have fun with your feline friend in whichever way you prefer. Nutro outlines ten games that can keep your cat active during this pandemic, one of which is fetch. Do not save fetch for your dog alone; your cat too can play, but you will have to make him interested by keeping treats close.

Also, instead of allowing your tissue paper to be ruined, give your cat crumpled paper to play with because the sound is exciting to them. You might have also seen how often they get into our shopping bags, so leave it in an accessible area for your cat to play safely in, but remember to keep a close watch on them to prevent them from swallowing bits of paper. You can also improve their predatory skills by playing hide and seek such that you hide, and he can stealthily walk up to you just like they would an unwary prey.

image sources

  • Cat Cricket: © Shutterstock
Henry Steinman

Henry is an animal lover, pure and simple. He’s been covering dogs and cats and a freelance and full-time writer since 2010. Henry’s been with Puppytoob and Kittentoob nearly his entire career. Currently he has 2 dogs, one cat, a turtle, and even a parakeet! He’s obsessed with keeping his animals healthy, happy, and even entertained.

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