This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Bachelor with Jeremy Zakis on Christmas Eve and

Merry Christmas to Jeremy and tomorrow for him is Christmas Day.

It's going to rain.

It's been raining for days.

It might rain for 40 more days.

There might be a lot of ARC jokes coming

in the Australian barbecue crowd as they stand around with her umbrellas

under pouring rain. However, at the same time I've learned that Australians take their

cricket very seriously. There's no joking around. We're about to learn a rule called

clause 2.17. It has to do with what the English do and the Australians don't and the proper respect to an umpire.

Please help me understand. One of the cricketers preparing for the test wanted to warm up on the pitch.

What did he do wrong, Jeremy?

Well, John, he actually broke one of the absolute basic laws of cricket. And in the warm-up what he did was he basically in

cricket I should describe the pitch the pitch is actually grass and it's made of turf so it is very delicate

despite the fact that you play for days and days on a pitch, it is very well manicured, so it has to be well protected.

But what this law is in particular is that in any international game, in any game in Australia, for that uses the turf pitch you are not allowed

to warm up on the pitch so and when I say warm up what bowl is normally doing cricket is

just before they're about to bowl is they run in they basically have a dress rehearsal

for how they go in a bowl and get themselves warmed up and limbed up and ready to go and it gives them

an idea of how the pitch is, how the run-up is and any things that might make them stumble or cause the problems

but they're not allowed to go on the pitch so 3 point a clause 3.1 which is actually

also showing respect to the umpire says that if you're instructed not to go on a pitch or it is pre-match,

...