Help me understand cricket.

[dalej42]

I'm flipping around on ESPN 360 and found Jamaica vs Nevis in a cricket match.

Can someone give me the quick idiot's guide to cricket?

[OttoDaFe]

Try this. I'm sure there's a still great deal that goes straight over my head, but I can generally follow along now.

[Ximenean]

I really don't buy the idea that cricket is excessively complicated. I am not a huge sports fan, but even I can follow cricket, including things like Duckworth Lewis and that you can't be out LBW from leg side (not sure why though). As I said in another thread:

It's like baseball, except with two bases. And you score a run every time you get to a base. And the bases are always loaded. And when you get back to first base, you go round again. And it's only one strike and you're out. But it's only a strike if it actually hits the wooden things. Or would have if your leg wasn't in the way. Otherwise you can stand there all day and never be struck out. Oh, there are no walks either. If the pitch is outside the strike zone, the batting team immediately scores a run. And the entire team bats in an inning, but there are only two innings each.

Simple!

I did omit one important thing - in cricket, the batter ("batsman") doesn't have to run if they hit the ball.

[Sir Dirx]

This page is another useful resource (written by the same guy who does Irregular Webcomic, if you're familiar with that)

[Xema]

Originally Posted by Usram

... one important thing - in cricket, the batter ("batsman") doesn't have to run if they hit the ball.

I've heard it said that this is really the most significant difference between cricket and baseball - the rest is just detail.

I think is can be argued that "every base scores a run" is also an important difference. Much of baseball strategy is concerned with trying to convert baserunners into runs.

[Xema]

Originally Posted by Sir Dirx

This page is another useful resource

Fairly useful, but I don't think this is much help:

You can't strike out. Swing and miss as much as you like.

Yes, swinging and missing of itself doesn't hurt. But if you fail to get your bat on a ball that's headed for the wicket, it's "one strike and you're out".

[GorillaMan]

Originally Posted by Xema

Fairly useful, but I don't think this is much help:
Yes, swinging and missing of itself doesn't hurt. But if you fail to get your bat on a ball that's headed for the wicket, it's "one strike and you're out".

Yes, something that can easily get overlooked is that most balls don't end up on course to hit the wicket, and most of the time this is deliberate. If the batsman reads the ball as being on course, he'll play a defensive shot. If he thinks it's safe to take the gamble of playing a shot and either hitting it or missing, he will do so. Spin bowlers work by making the bounce and flight of the ball unpredictable, with the intention of tricking the batsman into either playing at a ball which turns towards the wicket instead, or by mishitting and possibly being caught out as a result.

[TheLoadedDog]

Originally Posted by GorillaMan

Yes, something that can easily get overlooked is that most balls don't end up on course to hit the wicket, and most of the time this is deliberate. If the batsman reads the ball as being on course, he'll play a defensive shot. If he thinks it's safe to take the gamble of playing a shot and either hitting it or missing, he will do so. Spin bowlers work by making the bounce and flight of the ball unpredictable, with the intention of tricking the batsman into either playing at a ball which turns towards the wicket instead, or by mishitting and possibly being caught out as a result.

This also applies to a strategy of tricking the batsman into getting out Leg Before Wicket (LBW). Thus, you will often hear a cricket commentator refering to a batsman as having been "trapped LBW".


Maybe there are some tennis analogies to be had in the art of bowling in cricket. Dunno much about tennis though, but the psychological strategy side seems to have parallels.

[GorillaMan]

Yes - I just wanted to avoid LBW for the moment!

[t-bonham@scc.net]

Most understandable description I have ever heard: They are basically the same game, except baseball rules are biased in favor of the pitcher, while cricket rules are biased in favor of the batter.

Examples:
- baseball only 1/4 of the area if 'fair', the rest is fowl; in cricket all 360º are fair balls.
- baseball hitter must run on every hit ball, and thus can be forced out; cricket batter can choose to run the bases or just stand.
- a swing and a miss doesn't count against the batter.
- there are no balls (or walks); every pitch must be in the strike zone (or it counts against the pitcher's team).

Looking at it that way suddenly made a lot more sense. (The weird terms used were still hard to understand, though.)

[Raguleader]

Also, isn't Cricket based on some long-forgotten interstellar holocaust waged by aliens from the planet Wickett or somesuch?

[Captain_C]

Here's a link to a flash game that explains Cricket fairly well. Requires sound to get the full effect.

[Small Clanger]

Originally Posted by Raguleader

Also, isn't Cricket based on some long-forgotten interstellar holocaust waged by aliens from the planet Wickett or somesuch?

Krikkit.


Bill Bryson observes. Cricket, a game where men strap mattresses to their legs and throw a wooden ball at each others heads. With meal breaks.

[ScareyFaerie]

This explanation has been around on t'interweb for a very long time, but I reckon it makes perfect sense!

"Cricket - As explained to a foreigner

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game."

I have no idea who originally wrote it otherwise I'd do the decent thing and credit them with it.

[GuanoLad]

Originally Posted by ScareyFaerie

I have no idea who originally wrote it otherwise I'd do the decent thing and credit them with it.

I believe it was Ronnie Barker. Certainly sounds like him.

[Richard Pearse]

Originally Posted by Captain_C

Here's a link to a flash game that explains Cricket fairly well. Requires sound to get the full effect.

Excellent!

[Tapioca Dextrin]

If you want to play a game, you might stand a chance against the Bermudan Woman's team.

[TheLoadedDog]

And a piece of cricket trivia y'all might like: the first ever international cricket match was played between Canada and....














...the United States of America! True.

[Xema]

Originally Posted by Tapioca Dextrin

you might stand a chance against the Bermudan Woman's team.

Yipes. Only three of eleven team members scored any runs - each managed just a single. South Africa needed exactly 4 balls to win.

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Xema

Yipes. Only three of eleven team members scored any runs - each managed just a single. South Africa needed exactly 4 balls to win.

Not quite true: though only 3 runs were scored off the bat, the Bermudans got 10 runs as extras. On the other hand, they gave away 10 runs as extras. South Africa's innings actually lasted into the second over, in which Olivia Anderson hit the ball to the boundary for 4 runs, thus winning the match with one hit which repreesented 50% of the runs hit of the bat in the match.

[TellMeI'mNotCrazy]

This is the time to break out the perfect expression of my feelings about cricket, and trying to make sense of it. FRom the West Wing (paraphrased from memory)

Bartlet: Charlie, I consider myself an educated man, but whenever someone tries to explain cricket to me, I get an overwhelming urge to hit them over the head with a teapot.

I live in a country (South Africa) that loves its cricket. My husband has tried to explain the game to me. I can usually pick up things pretty quickly, but for the life of me, I really cannot make sense of cricket. Even if I abandon all concepts from similar sports and take cricket as its own game, I simply can't grasp it.


(Did a thousand people just say Whop?)

[Valgard]

I lived in England for a year when I was 9 and we never played cricket at school. To this day I'm not sure if anyone knew the rules.

For a pretty good primer rent the movie "Lagaan" - it's a good Bollywood flick featuring a showdown between the team of plucky villagers (assembled "Seven Samurai" style) and the Dastardly British (with an extra helping of Snideliness).