It’s just not croquet: the muso and the Russian who bonded over cricket

Tasmanian musician Elinor Morrisby, 79, and Russian geochemist Sofia Tetroeva, 43, are close friends and cricket tragics. As they watch the current Ashes series from Australia, Sofia is at a turning point in her life.

Elinor Morrisby: “She’s got a wonderfully mad sense of humour and we laugh ourselves silly.”Credit: Rohan Thomson

Elinor: I met Sofia 20 years ago when she came to Hobart to do a PhD in geology at the University of Tasmania. I said she could rent my spare bedroom. Here was this interesting young Russian woman who was obviously very intelligent but was also shy and spoke very little English.

The first few months were really a bit tricky. I thought, how is this going to work out? Gradually the ice broke and Sofia started watching TV with me. Slowly, very slowly, we started to communicate. One day, I was watching pyjama cricket – one-day cricket – and Sofia said, “What’s that?” I said, “Cricket.” She said, “The game they played in Alice in Wonderland?” I said, “No, no, that’s croquet. This is cricket.” She said, “I’ve never heard of it.”

In one-day cricket, the teams wear different colours, so she could see who was on one team and who was on the other. Later, there was a Test match. Sofia said to me, “We’ve got everyone in white. I don’t know what’s going on.” I got a scrap of paper and drew a diagram. I said, “Here’s the wicket, here are the stumps”, and gave a very basic explanation of the game.

I didn’t go into what a googly was, or a maiden over, or anything like that. The next thing I know, Sofia is sitting up until three in the morning, watching the Ashes. She just became completely obsessed with the game.

Sofia returned to Russia in 2010, but she’s been back to Australia several times. We’re both single and both love to travel. We go all over the place, following the cricket. We’ve been to England twice – once for an Ashes series and once for the Cricket World Cup.

When we travel, we share the duties: she navigates and I’m the driver; she’s the cook, I wash up. In a way, we’re very different personalities. I’m probably more intense. When she doesn’t know where we’re going and I’m yelling, she says, “Shoosh.” She’s very calm and she’s not judgmental. I wouldn’t travel with anyone else now. It wouldn’t be as much fun. She’s got a wonderfully mad sense of humour and we laugh ourselves silly.

I love cricket, but I’m not quite as fanatical as Sofia. I mean, no one in Russia plays cricket, but Sofia loves it and she understands its complexities. She can read the game between the lines. She has such a prodigious memory that she remembers what happened in a Test match 20 years ago. She’s amazing. If she had a conversation with [ABC cricket commentator] Jim Maxwell, they’d get on like a house on fire.

I’ve visited Sofia in Russia three times. But I’ll never go back now because of the invasion of Ukraine.

Elinor Morrisby

I’ve visited her in Russia three times. I fell in love with the people and the country, and started learning Russian, but I’ll never go back now because of the invasion of Ukraine. Everything’s changed; it’s a real tragedy. Sofia has left her position at Moscow State University. She’s spending three months in Australia, then she’ll go to live with family members in Turkey. I’m glad she’s left Russia because nobody knows when or how this terrible war is going to end.

Sofia: I was 23 when I moved into Elinor’s place. She was almost 60. She was teaching the flute, taking Spanish lessons, writing a book. She had lived and studied in Czechoslovakia. She had friends all over the world. I was like, “Oh wow, that’s very cool.” When I spoke to my mum, I said, “I am living with a wonderful woman. She is very busy. She’s doing so many things. It’s fantastic.”

I had studied English at school and then at uni. I knew a lot of grammar rules, but I basically didn’t have any spoken English. I was at the level of, “My name is Sofia.” In those first months in Australia, everyone said, “You have to watch television to learn English.” I took their advice seriously. Every evening I watched TV, regardless of what was on. Actually, Elinor watched very good programs: Poirot, Miss Marple, Midsomer Murders – all those mysteries.

We also watched sport. When I asked Elinor about cricket, she said, “Look, it’s quite complicated. Normally, foreigners don’t follow it. But it’s a fascinating game”.

I thought, “Okay, I’ll give it a go. If a person I respect says it’s interesting, I should watch a little bit and see what’s what.” It took me about a year to really get into it. By the time the 2005 Ashes series in England started, I was hooked absolutely. Elinor and I would watch the first session together and then she’d go to bed. I watched all night.

What I like about cricket is that it’s a team sport – everyone has to perform well to win the game – but when the batsman is out there facing the bowler, it’s one on one. I also like that you can’t predict the result. In soccer, if one team gets four goals, you know that’s it; the other team has basically lost. But in cricket, having a high score doesn’t mean your team is going to win. The other team might get a lot of runs, too, and in the second innings anything can happen. A game that goes for five days can change in minutes. It’s very exciting. When Elinor and I go to a match, we are always well prepared. We take some food and drinks to the ground. Hats, rain jackets, everything we might need for a day out. We always stay for the whole thing.

Elinor and I can discuss anything. We talk about sport, of course, but also history and literature. We exchange information. When we’re travelling, I can talk about stones or rocks that we see along the way and she’ll talk about music. Elinor sometimes gets frustrated if things don’t go according to plan. I’m quite adjustable. I just go, “Okay, we’ll take a different road.” We travel very well together.

Quitting my job in Moscow wasn’t a hard decision. I basically decided on the day the war started that I wasn’t going to stay. Late last year when I came to Australia for the cricket – the Men’s T20 World Cup – I had a chance to discuss everything in person with Elinor. It was great to have somebody who understood. Elinor is extremely good at being a friend.

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