The Boxing Day Test Match

So, my very first Christmas Day is over.  I don't know what all the fuss was about.  It didn't seem any different to any other day really.  I sat in my cage eating vegetables and periodically being molested by either Pea or Chook.  I watched TV and in the evening had a run around the floor.  The only thing that stands out is that I almost wet my fur when a dirty great possum appeared at the window while I was admiring the view.  Pea and Chook thought it hilarious when I leapt a foot in the air and squealed like a girl, but I'd like to see how they'd react when confronted unexpectedly by a pink nosed furry thing ten times their size!

Boxing day is over and done with too.  Don't know why it's called boxing day.  Pea says that it's because the day after Christmas Day is traditionally when most family fights break out, but I don't know whether or not to believe him - he's such a fibber.  Anyway, boxing day is obviously the main  religious and spiritual day of the Christmas holidays.  Pea and I sat and watched the TV as over eighty thousand worshippers filed into a holy site called the Melbourne Cricket Ground and after the national anthems of England and Australia had been sung a whole lot of dudes in white marched onto the field and a game of cricket broke out.  Pea loves his cricket, especially when England are beating Australia, which apparently doesn't happen that often so he makes the most of it when it occurs.  He's perplexed that Americans (who seem to have no trouble understanding the impenetrable laws of gridiron) find cricket so confusing.  Pea explained the rules to me and they seemed straightforward enough, so if a guinea pig can understand them surely even an American can at least grasp the basics .  So for the benefit of (both) my American readers here is my understanding of the game of cricket.

Each team has eleven players.  One team bats and the other fields. Only two batsmen are in at a time.  The others are not yet out but are inside.  When one of the two batsmen who are in is out another batsmen who was inside comes out and is then in.  The batsman who was formerly in but is now out goes inside and gets drunk.
When the next batsman who was in outside gets out he too is replaced by another  batsman who is not yet out.  This new batsman comes out and is in until he too is out, whereby he goes in and because he is out gets drunk.  Then.............Oh look, just forget it.  Stick to baseball!