Now that IS cricket! With the recent rules clarifications, things finally start to make sense around here.
And finally the kickers are getting their opportunity to shine. High time, too! I mean, what’s cricket without kickers? Boring, that’s what it is.
Both team send out their best kickers straight away. For the All-Stars-Team, it’s the legendary “60 yards Magnum”, himself. As Yogi points out, that 60 yard kick has not been properly documented or verified, but there is a source for it. A source that is very insistent that it happened, and very ready to challenge anybody to a fight that dares to voice even the slightest doubt about that. A tall, blond, heavily armed source with pointy ears and teeth and a memorably demonic laugh. I think Yogi is well-advised not to rely unreservedly on that source…but he’s also wise to question it no further than that, because an assault rifle can bring down even a bear pretty quickly, and there is an empty spot in fromt of Hiruma’s fireplace.
Historical truth aside, Hiruma’s psychologic warfare has its affect on the Yuri Shinkai Gakuen team. With so much attention to length-based legendarity, the pressure is on the YSG team to counter. With nobody on the team ever having made a legendarily long cricket kick…or any cricket kick, for that matter…they were desperately looking for other length-based achievements the team could use to counter the AST’s domination of the bragging arena. Of course they all knew about Hiroki, because Youichi slides that bit of information into casual conversation every chance he gets…and while it’s not directly related to cricket, in the arena of bragging and general chest-beating, having that sort of measurement to boast of will always score points. It’s a classic case of bragging rights.
So, the pre-kick-off bragging battle stands at 1:1. Not bad for the YSG team, since we all now that Hiruma has little in terms of tactic that’s not based on psychological effects.
Unfortunately, Riko starts to feel a bit under the weather again. Likely just a bit of lingering effect from her earlier trauma. Yogi should have stopped shaking her head when I told him to. But she was alert, talking and even chipper for a moment in between there, so that’s a good sign. She likely will be okay. If Yogi can restrain himself from shaking her head again…
More on Thursday.