There has been an influx of sports-entertainment themed bars to the city in recent times, many of which have proved extremely popular with us locals. Flight club, Top Golf, Dropshot (and loads of others) all provide a more interesting (and ludicrously fun) alternative to just a standard night out at a bar. However given how popular cricket is in England’s second city, it’s a headscratcher as to why a cricket-themed bar hadn’t taken its place among the sporting-smorgasbord of venues in Brum. That is, until now.
Sixes Social Cricket which already has multiple bars in London and Manchester has finally opened a venue in Birmingham and we were very kindly this week invited over to try out their interactive cricket game as well as sample the delights on their food and drinks menu (which all had a cricketing-twist).
Now before I go any further, I must proclaim that whilst I am a sporting fanatic, cricket has never been my jam (although I am a dab-hand with a silly mid-on). I did play in school and I did once bowl someone out in an inter-schools match but in that same over I also bowled seven wides and lost us the game (much to the chagrin of my class mates). So in other words, I love sport but Jimmy Anderson I ain’t.
Harriette, my colleague and team-mate for the evening is also more of a self-confessed Rounders kinda gal and therefore also didn’t hold out too much hope for her performance.
How to play
Much like a batting cage you see on American movies and TV shows (or even just a practice net you’d find at cricket clubs), to play, one stands inside and bats against a machine that bowls balls against you with varying levels of difficulty (which you can adjust). All the usual rules of cricket apply – if you miss and the ball is bowled at the stumps – you lose a wicket. You also score runs exactly like in cricket but in this instance you have to hit various targets placed inside the net (with a 6 being the hardest one to get, obviously).
In front of you there’s also a giant screen where an animated CGI player runs up and bowls at you. With my limited knowledge of cricket it took me about 5 overs to work out that when the guy took a long run up, he was going to bowl fast at you and when he took a smaller run up he was going to add more spin. Learning this vital piece of information certainly made things easier as the night wore on.
Let’s play ball
Alas, it was a nervy start for both of us. The first over came and went and neither of us scored a solitary run. Despite everything I just said about not being very good at cricket, I set my difficulty level at 3 (1 being the easiest and 5 being the hardest) whilst Haz didn’t want any proverbial smoke from the machine and set hers to a 1.
Much like cricket however (or indeed any sporting endeavour), we both got our ‘eye in’ a few overs later, and started knocking them out the park (not literally) which prompted us both to knock our difficulty levels up one notch.
In the end I scored a not-too-shabby 98 runs (with a difficulty level 4, may I remind you) in the allotted hour we had. A 5 minute break in between overs to cool down and order food can be blamed as to why I didn’t reach the 100 mark and lift my bat to the imaginary crowd in my head that were singing my name. Harriette scored a very respectable 60 and perhaps should have scored more if she didn’t keep continuously hitting the exact spot which was 2 inches wide of the 4 runs target!
She did only get bowled once all evening however, whilst I took a hit of 5 wickets (2 of which were literally just me hitting the stumps with my own bat!). And whilst I’d still technically won the game, in a very real sense cricket (and good food) was the real winner.
I’m just going to say this off the bat (pun semi-intended), my Sri Lankan Fielder burger was divine. As a vegetarian (95% of the time), I’m all too aware of how hit and miss veggie burgers can be in pubs (trust me, there’s some utter dross out there).
I had already sneaked a look at some of the food on the Sixes’ Instagram before arriving and I won’t lie, I said verbatim to Harriette, ‘some of the food on their menu looks a joke’. It is so eye-catching and the cricket-themed names of the dishes are humorous too (of course Beefy Botham has a burger named after him). Whilst there was only one vegetarian option for me on the menu, fortunately this was more than enough as I’ve already iterated, I really freakin’ enjoyed it.
And as I was leaving the premises I won’t lie to you, I was eyeing up some very juicy looking ‘crispy chicken wings’ that were being inhaled by a table near the entrance so clearly their meat-based options pack a punch also.
*Competition
So all-in-all, a great night was had by the We Love Brum gang in what is our very first review for the site. And in an unexpected mark of generosity, the guys over at Sixes have also given us another free hour slot to give away to one of our readers! Follow our Instagram page to be notified of the competition which will go live this week!
*Please note, competition is now closed.
