Plan B Forum

An American woman has become an unwilling focus of the cricketing world's attention during the Ashes series.

Cricket fans across England and Australia have turned to Twitter to share their thoughts on the Test series and have found @theashes on the social networking service.

The woman, from Westfield, Massachusetts, writes mostly about knitting and her toddler, but it hasn't stopped hundreds of people from sending her messages and asking for score updates.

At first she was amused by the sudden attention, but it quickly lost its novelty.

"I am not a cricket match. Stop mentioning me and check profiles before you send messages. It's really annoying," she wrote.

But her irritation only prompted others to re-tweet her comments to hundreds more.

The teasing spread fast with Twitter users encouraging others to follower her to get the latest Ashes updates.

She now has over 4100 followers - up from a few hundred people before the Ashes series began - and her frustration is clearly evident: "I AM NOT A FREAKING CRICKET MATCH!!!"

Cricket tweeters, however, are urging the woman to accept her fate as a new icon.

"It seems to have caught on! Your chance to influence thousands of people," one wrote.

"You're very popular, m'dear!" wrote another.

At the very least, the Twitter trend is a chance to teach Americans a thing or two about cricket.

One of her latest posts shows she now has a few questions about the game.

"What the hell is a wicket?" she pondered.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/techno ... 18dat.html

ASHLEY KEREKES has travelled halfway across the world to hold a cricket bat for the first time, so it was no surprise that she was wielding the willow at Sydney Airport yesterday.

Not much of a sporting fan, the American babysitter is more likely to be found pursuing crafty hobbies than sweating it out over a five-day cricket Test.

But she has left her snowy Westfield, Massachusetts, home with her boyfriend, Dan, to attend the final Ashes Test in Sydney. Ms Kerekes, 22, had never heard of cricket before November but when England and Australia began their Ashes campaign in Brisbane her followers on Twitter swelled from 300 to almost 13,500.

Since Qantas decided to support the Twitter campaign, Ms Kerekes has been learning some of cricket's laws and jargon.

''I'm really excited even though Australians are pretty bummed - I know that England has retained,'' she said. ''I think they call it a dead rubber or something like that.''

Vodafone has also set up a #teachtheashestheashes campaign so cricket-savvy Twitter users can help explain the sport to Ms Kerekes.

It is her first trip to Australia, but the visit is expected to be packed with all things cricket, says L.J. Loch, from Republic Consulting, which is organising her itinerary.

''We're hoping to get to the Barmy Army-Fanatics fund-raiser for the McGrath Foundation at Coogee on Saturday,'' Ms Loch said. ''On Sunday we're going to Harts Pub in The Rocks for backyard cricket in the beer garden, and then the Test on Monday.''

Ms Kerekes said: ''We almost didn't make it here because of the blizzards in New York.''

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/techno ... 19b7k.html