With all due respect to my curiously-hatted compatriot, I’d like to try a different approach to explaining how the game of cricket works.
The game of cricket is usually played on a big field, typically round (or roughly so) in shape, with the edge of the entire playing area encircled by a boundary line. This is delineated by a continuous stripe of paint along the ground, or a rope lying on the ground, running all the way around the field.
During play, there will be one team of 11 players standing at various places around the field. They are known as the fielding team. Most of the positions they can stand at have faintly ridiculous names like “silly mid-off” and “short leg”, but you don’t need to worry about those whatsoever. The captain of the fielding team tells all the other players on his team where he would like them to stand. Their job is to catch or stop the ball if it comes near them, if they can.
Roughly in the middle of the field is a strip of grass about 2 yards wide and 22 yards (~20 metres) long that is cut much shorter than the surrounding grass, so much so that it usually takes on a yellow or brown colour. This is known as the pitch. At each end are a set of stumps - these consist of three slim wooden posts stuck in the ground, each with two smaller pieces of wood resting on top (known as ‘bails’).
Two players on the fielding team have very specific, additional roles. The most important is the bowler. He is the one who bowls (basically, throws - but keeping his arm straight) the ball from one end of the pitch towards the batsman (a player from the other team holding a bat who stands at the other end of the pitch - more on him in a moment). He will do this after a run up which will usually be long if he intends to bowl the ball fast, or short if he intends to bowl the ball slowly. He has to let go of the ball before his feet cross lines marked at one end of the pitch. The other special person on the fielding team stands behind the stumps, behind the batsman, at the opposite end from the bowler. He is the only person on the fielding team allowed to wear gloves, and his job is to stop or catch the ball if it goes past the batsman. He is called the wicketkeeper.
The basic job of the bowler (and the rest of the fielding team) is to try to get the batsman ‘out’. This can be accomplished in various ways. The simplest is for the bowler to bowl the ball and hit the stumps. The first job of the batsman is therefore to stop the ball hitting the stumps, which he may only do with his bat. If he does so with his leg (or any other body part, other than a hand holding his bat), it is known as ‘leg-before-wicket’ and he will be ‘out’ for that anyway (note that various exceptions can apply). The other most common way of getting out is if the batsman hits the ball and someone on the fielding team catches it before it hits the ground. So the batsman will generally try to hit the ball along the ground and/or away from the fielders, to prevent this. When a batsman is ‘out’ he walks off the field and one of his team-mates comes on to take his place. Once the tenth batsman is out then it is the end of that team’s turn at batting (because there must always be 2 out of the 11 players in a team batting at the same time).
The second job of the batsman is to score points (known as ‘runs’) for his team (the fielding team never score runs - they are simply trying to get the batting side out before they score any, or for as few as possible). The batsman can do this by hitting the ball, and then running from one end of the pitch to the other. They don’t have to run every time they hit the ball, only when they choose to. You will notice there are always two batsmen on the pitch at any one time - the other one starts at the same end of the pitch as the bowler, and just runs to the other end as required. If they swap ends in this way, they also swap roles for the next ‘ball’ (which is the next time the bowler bowls the ball towards the batsman).
Batsmen are allowed to run up and down as many times as they like (crossing over with each other each time), and each time they do so, a ‘run’ is scored and added to the total. However, if the fielding team manages to hit the stumps with the ball before the batsmen gets there, that batsman is ‘out’ and does not score that run. So it is only possible to run up and down a few times before it becomes too risky. Typically the highest number of times the batsmen can do this before the fielding side retrieves the ball is 3.
If the batsman hits a shot that evades all the fielders and hits or crosses the boundary around the edge of the field, that is an automatic score of 4 runs. And if he does the same but without the ball hitting the ground, it is automatically 6 runs.
Play continues in this fashion until all the batsmen on one team (except one) are ‘out’, then all their runs are added together to make that team’s total. Then the batting team swaps with the fielding team and the whole things starts again, with the new batting team trying to score more runs than the previous batting team managed. If they do, then they win, and if all of them are out before they do so, then the team that batted first wins.
Howzat?
