Johnny L.A.:
Here’s a map of the Woodley Cricket Fields, and the Southern California Cricket Association 2002 schedule.
Monty has beaten me with a link to the constituent clubs.
There is ticket information for the AXN America Challenge winding up today. I don’t see any ticket information for any other games, but there is some contact information on the website.
Is it customary for cricket players to take a break during a match to have some cocktails? Sorry if this is a massively ignorant question but I thought I saw that somewhere…?
Also is cricket more of an upper-crust game compared to football (soccer)?
Johnny LA: I have an old crappy bat in the boot of my car. Maybe another thing you’d like me to bring on my excursion to America?
An amusing cricket story. Last season two of the local suburban teams in Sydney gained the services of the two fastest bowlers in the world (one was Mosman, can’t remember the other), Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar. These guys can bowl at close to 160kph. Facing up to poor weekend bashers, they were cracking helmets and the poor players had to retire “hurt”.
Not cocktails, Torgo, but soft drinks (typically isotonic these days) are taken by the players on the field at various intervals depending on the heat of the day etc.
Since a day’s play lasts from 11:00am until after 6:00pm, there are also two full meal breaks taken - Lunch at 1:00pm and Tea in the late afternoon - when the players leave the field. The spectators eat as much as they like during these, of course, but the players just take light sustenance.
Generally cricket is a bit more genteel than football, but that varies geographically.
Somewhat harder, in fact. And considerably heavier.
Rodney “Bacchus” Marsh, one of Australia’s greatest wicketkeepers, (that’s equivalent to “catcher”) once had his hands x-rayed. The results showed such a frightening mass of old fractures that he never did it again.
Not much to add to what Monty and antechinus have posted on the way that the game is played, just to mention that the current (one-day) international series being played in Sri Lanka is the ICC Champions Trophy which has reached the semi-final stage, with India playing South Africa on Wednesday and Australia playing Sri Lanka on Friday.
India seem to be the form team at the moment, and with Sri Lanka getting a massive home team advantage, expect an all-Asian Final, in spite of Aus and SA being ranked at number one and two in the world.
Grim
::a hopeful South Africa supporter::
Actually, they were both playing for Mosman.
Shoaib to play for Mosman this Saturday
The reaction from the Gordon opening batsmen seems to have gone unrecorded. 
Thanks Monty, Peregrine and Ell!
Rather off topic, but this reminds me of an Aussie friend’s son. He played on his high school’s baseball team here last year, and for the last game showed up in his batsmans gear. Good fun ensued all around. 
Torgo’s question is not as farfetched as it might sound. Isotonic sports drinks might well be the go these days, but in the old days, a gentleman might well partake of champagne during the tea break. IIRC the fine English batsman David Gower was not above this (as well as buzzing the ground in aircraft) during lesser games.
The easiest way to explain cricket to Americans is that it’s Hotbox with a bat and several outfielders.
Unlike in baseball, the ball often bounces several times before it gets to the batsman. Since this same stretch of ground is also about where the batsmen run back and forth to score runs, over the course of the match it has a tendency to get all divoted and uneven, which means the ball can get more and more unpredictable as the match progresses.
–Cliffy
Well no, it only bounces once. But I assume your point is that where it bounces it damages the pitch surface so that future balls bounce even more unpredictably (that’s true and is a major factor in tactics during a five-day game).
Maybe it’s worth adding that whereas in baseball each pitch uses a fresh ball, in cricket the same ball is used hundreds of times. This damages the leather casing progressively, but you’ll often see fielders polishing the ball on their clothing*. What they’re trying to do is keep one half of the ball less damaged than the other. The difference in roughness creates an aerodynamic effect like a plane’s wing and enables curve balls to be bowled (we call that “swing”).
[sup]*[/sup]The players typically use the crook of their groin as a polishing surface, which looks really wierd to the uninitiated. 
What’s hotbox?
And no, Cliffy the batsmen do not run on the same ground as the ball bounces (the pitch) . They run to either side of the pitch. To do otherwise is to create just the sort of divots that they themselves will have to contend with. And it’s against the rules, also.
Yes, that was a bit biased of me.
‘One day’ cricket (aka limited over) was invented in the seventies by Kerry Packer, a big (literaly) media magnate. The purpose was to appeal to the newly aquired short-attention-spans of the populus, a result of watching too much tellie.
http://www.abcofcricket.com/cfb1/cfb5/cfb6/cfb6.htm
The game goes for only about 7 hours and as a result is very exiting. Imagine the exitement of a 5 day test compressed into only 7 hours.
The players wear brightly coloured outfits (derisivly termed pyjamas) and there is a camera covering the game from just about every angle, including from inside the stumps. So, if you like action and colour, this is the cricket to watch.
If you want to veg out, then its test cricket.
There is also indoor cricket, but that’s another story.
I just thought of another difference between cricket and baseball that might surprise some of you - there are no on-field coaches in cricket!
Instead one of the players from each team (the captain) has to take all the tactical decisions, organise the fielders’ positions, select which bowler should be up next, liaise with the umpires about any disputes and instruct his batsmen when to “declare” the innings (i.e. call it to a halt early because the lead is already big enough and it’s time to field instead).
The captaincy is a big job for a player given that he also has to bat, field and maybe bowl like any other player.
**antechinus** - The inside-stump-camera was a very good invention I think you'll agree, but do you also use the [Hawk-Eye system](http://www.channel4.com/sport/cricket/analyst/hawkeye/about.html) Down Under now? As usual when they cover sports Channel 4 have a genius for helpful technology IMHO.Another thing about cricket, which I suspect is not taken quite as far in baseball is analysis of the game. Between balls (bowls) the viewer is shown a host of graphs, plots and tables. Scores are projected, compared, contingencies scrutinised and historical data retrieved. All in nice, pretty layout. Makes the AMP annual report look like a school project.
This is done, of course, is to fill all the dead time where nothing much else is happening. And there is the million replays from every possible angle.
It may sound strange, but the viewer loves this stuff. Cricket viewing kids grow up with a fairly handy understanding of statistics.
Everton - Is the Hawk-Eye system the one that projects the path of the ball past the point of impact with body/pads to determine whether it would have hit the wicket. I saw this from a UK broadcast - quite impressive. Dont think channel 9 (big cricket broadcaster) have started with it yet. There would be just about more technology used in a one-day cricket coverage than a space shuttle launch.
antechinus: You want techonological displays in baseball? I have them for you right here. Whoops, I mean I had them for you when I lived near Tokyo. Heck, the nightly newscasts had peel off cardboard display boards, but by gosh, the baseball games aired (this was back in 1991~1995) had ultramodern graphs, displays, projections, individual and team and field statistics. I tell you, for a while there I couldn’t decide if I was watching a game or prepping for a stats dissertation!
Hawk Eye:
I’ve tried Googling for a good demo site, but can’t do better than the one I posted earlier. In layman’s terms it uses missile tracking technology to synchronise the images from various cameras posted around the stadium and combines the data into a graphic display to show the path of the ball after it leaves the bowler’s hand.
One of the decisions the umpire needs to take is the “out; leg before wicket” decision, which depends on his judgement about whether the ball would have hit the stumps had it not struck the batsman instead (if it would the batsman may be out). The Hawk-Eye system gives a reliable piece of evidence to confirm or contradict the umpire’s judgement. Note that it’s only shown to the TV viewer, it isn’t yet used to make lbw decisions.
At first, the game’s officials were worried that it might make the umpires look incompetent, but in fact has shown them to be remarkably sound. The graphic is ready to show as quickly as any action replay, so they could use it as a live aid to umpires if they wanted.
TV presentations have also started using Hawk-Eye to analyse line decisions in tennis and could be used for any sports where tracking the path of a ball is crucial. As well as the lbw use, they’ve started using it to analyse the path of every ball bowled and to show the different effects of spin and speed.
Although Channel 4 are the main cricket broadcaster in the UK, they do show some games on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky as well. I’d say it was only a matter of time before the Aussie Channel 9 starts using it.
Here’s a link to the company behind the system.