Bluey’s cricket episode: why did it leave Australians in tears and Americans puzzled?

Nick, cricketers everywhere are losing their collective minds over a Bluey episode. What is going on?

It’s the third season of Bluey, the wonderful Australian children’s cartoon show about a Queensland family of dogs, and I don’t need to tell you it’s an international phenomenon.

Just about every episode spawns online whirlpools of reaction. This one more than most, apparently – at least among cricketers, and cricket lovers, because it was about cricket. I’m told it reduced some to tears. Would you like me to recap the plot? I can be brief.

I’m all (dog) ears.

They play a lot of back yard cricket. There’s a young dog who’s very good at it because he practises a lot. Credits.

If you’d like to know more, the ABC got one of their sports writers to pen a very long and detailed recap.

But that’s it, basically.

And why the outburst of emotion? I love dogs as much as the next person, but …

And I love cricket. People are saying the episode captures the true meaning and spirit of cricket; it evokes memories of how they came to the game.

(Bluey is very good at arousing emotion by showing us scenes of family life in Australia that strike deep chords – I’ve cried myself in previous episodes, I’m not ashamed to admit. Sleepytime still gets me.)

And it tells a kind of parable: how a kid shines in something he loves. Plus, it nicks a few elements from well-known stories about how great Australian cricketers became great.

Right, the nostalgia card. I heard it had more views than Australia’s World Test Championship win over India. Does that mean modern day cricket is dead?

Well, at this point I should probably admit – at the risk of offending lovers of the world-conquering blue dog – that I reckon this episode was a bit of a slow full toss.

Missed the mark?

Wide of leg stump. And don’t take the word of a grumpy old man shaking his fist at ABC iView’s cloud. I have twin boys who love Bluey (they’re at the younger end of the target age group, but well into it) and during this episode I heard them say something I’ve never heard before: “Daddy, I don’t like this Bluey.”

The horror!

Yeah. Through their eyes, it was just a dog hitting a ball with a stick for five minutes. Which, to be fair, they’d probably watch on YouTube, but in a cartoon it wasn’t enough to keep the attention of two under-4s.

What about the international audience? For some Americans, this may be the first time they’ve been exposed to the great game. Have they been left dumbfounded? Has Bluey sold the sport, which to amateurs like myself is just humans hitting a ball with a stick for several hours?

It’s not the first time Americans have been puzzled by Bluey cricket references. Back in February, one Massachusetts mum reportedly mistook a cricket bat lying in a hedge for a wine bottle. Frankly, I think a nation obsessed with baseball – without doubt the world’s most soporific sport – should be open to learning the joys of a five-day test match.

But I’m not sure this episode will do it. For me, it committed the cardinal sin of children’s entertainment: making it for adults and missing the kids.

In the words of the wicketkeeping great and very much grown man Ian Healy: “I love Bluey … you sit down to watch one episode and end up watching three or four.”

If only my kids would be happy stopping at four.