Cricket
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Cricket
A somewhat vague and not nescessarily accurate beginners guide to Cricket, somewhat more or less aimed at Americans. G'day :)
Cricket is a sport played primarily by Commonwealth (as in, once was the English Empire) nations.
Rules
Cricket is played on ovals which may vary in size and proportions. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is large and almost circular, the Adelaide Cricket Ground is long but narrow, while Lords (the 'home of cricket' is relatively small by Australian standards, and has a measurable slope between the east and the west sides!)
Cricket shares with baseball the basic aim of hitting the ball with a bat, and not getting caught out. The accumulation of points is made by running. Unlike baseball, there are two batsmen in the field at all times, and they stay there untill they are out. The innings is over when there are 10 outs (there are 11 in a team, but 10 outs means you can't put two batsmen out there) The captain of the batting team can 'declare' and end the innings early.
The game is played as a series of 'overs'. Each over is the bowling of 6 valid balls. Invalid balls are those which are deemed to be incorrectly bowled - for example, the bowler was too far forward when releasing (no ball), or his arm was not straight (throw) at point of release, or the ball was judged to be too 'wide'. These are all 'extras' and give the batting team an additional run. There are also 'leg byes' - where the ball is deflected off the batsmans body, is NOT judged lbw (see below), and is not immediately stopped by the keeper. If the batsman can score runs off this, they are entitled to do so, but are scored as 'extras' rather than scoring to the batsman.
Each 'run' is made by the batsmen running between the two ends of the wicket and reaching 'safe' ground. 'Safe' means they or part of their equipment they are holding (ie, their bat, whcih is carried with them as they run) touches the ground behind the crease.
If the ball hits the boundary, then it is automatically scored as 4. If it clears the boundary on the full, then it is scored as 6.
Batsman can be out via:
- Caught - same as baseball, except only the wicket keeper wears gloves. The wicket keeper is roughly the equivelant to the catcher in baseball. Note that a catch can only be a deflection off the bat. A catch from a deflection off the body (usually glove or leg) is not out.
- Bowled - the bowled ball hits the wicket and knocks the bails off. The only legitimate way the batsman can protect the wicket is with his bat.
- Leg-before-wicket (lbw) - where the ball deflects off the batsmans body, and the umpire judges that the ball would have hit the wicket.
- Run-out - where the batsman strikes the ball into the field and attempts to score runs, but a fielder returns the ball to the wicket and knocks off the bails *before* the batsman can achieve safe ground. Remember that there are two batsmen and two wickets - the non-striking batsman can be runout in this way.
Note that the bowler or teammates must actually ask the umpire for the out in all instances except bowled. Similarly, if the ball is oncorrectly bowled as a "no ball", then the batsman cannot be bowled, lbw or caught out.
There are two primary variants of cricket as played internationally - testmatch and one-day.
"Test" Matches
Test matches can last 5 days (is there any other multi-day sport anywhere in the world? Let alone one played at an international level?) and each day is divided into 3 sessions (there is a lunch break, and a tea break). Each session is typically around 60 overs long. A test match is not over untill each team has two complete innings - or the five days is up. The winning conditions are that your accumulated score is greater than the accumulated score of the losing team, and that the losing team have completed two innings completely. A coin toss determines who bats first.
Example: TeamA and TeamB. TeamA bats first, scores 350 and is bowled out completely. End Day One. TeamB bats second, scores 600, and declares, even though only 4 batsmen are out. They do this to try and leave enough time to get a victory. It is now the end of Day three. TeamA bats third - this time they score 500 in 4 sessions. Their total score is 850. There are only two sessions left on day five, and team B needs to score 251 runs to win.
So, if TeamA bowls teamB out completely before they score 250, then A wins. If teamB can get 251 runs, then they've won. If the day finishes and teamB still hasn't obtained 250 runs, then it's a draw. There is no clear winner. A draw is distinct from a tie, which is rare - that would be where teamB scores 250 to even the score exactly, but is bowled out completely before gaining a lead.
Because of the extended time over which a test match is played, deterioration of the playing conditions can be a factor in play, as can weather.
There are other complexities not touched on here naturally.
Test matches are played in traditional cricketing 'whites' with a red ball. There are no uniforms per se.
One day matches
A one-day match on the other hand is simply one innings per team, with a 50over limit per innings (may be shorter if rain halts play). One-day matches often have fielding restrictions for the first 15 (I think) overs. The winner is simply the team to have the most runs from their 50 overs.
While test-matches typically score at a rate of about 100-150runs per session (of 60 overs), one-day matches are geared towards greater excitement and higher scoring - and so scores of 250-300 for 50 overs are not uncommon.
One-day matches are typically played with coloured uniforms and may use a white ball in 'day-night matches'. The cricketing world-cup is played as a series of one-day matches.
Positions
Some key positions of fielders:
- bowler
- wicket keeper - is behind the batsman to catch the ball if it is untouched, or to catch for an out if it is nicked barely.
- slips - to the sides of the keeper, they catch the ball if it is deflected with a stronger nick. Typically there are 3 slips positions.
- gully - basically the fourth slip position.
Terminology
- Hat trick
- To do something in triple without interruption. Used almost exclusively for the bowler in terms of outs achieved. ie, 3 outs in 3 balls. After the second, the bowler would be said to 'be on his hattrick'.
- Duck
- For a batsman - to be out without making a score.
- Golden Duck
- To be out without making a score on your first ball.
- LBW
- Leg Before Wicket - to be judged out because according to the umpire, you would have been bowled had your body not gotten in the way.
- Caught Behind
- To be caught by the wicket keeper after a swing-and-a-touch. A slightly larger touch may deflect the ball out of the wicket keepers reach - in which case the ball will travel to the slips positions.
- wicket
- Consists of the stumps and the bails - the stumps are the three columnbs that the batsman protects and the bowler attacks, whilst the bails are two small wodded pieces balanced on top of the stumps.
- batters average
- number of total runs divided by total outs. Note that because each innings leaves a minimum of one batsman 'not out', it is possible (but rare) for a batsman to have an average higher than his highest score. This usually happens with bowler - who usually are not good batsmen, and are thus at the end of the batting order (tail enders), and thus are more likely to be the last man standing... Batting averages for dedicated batsmen are usually in the 30-50 range, whilst for bowlers who cannot bat their average may be below 10.
- bowlers averages
- Number of runs conceded per out.
- maiden over
- an over in which no runs were conceded. Bowling teams like these.
Misc
There is no formal 'world champion' in cricket, since the world-cup only covers one-day matches, and one-day dominance does not nescessarily mean test-match dominance (and vice versa). It is generally considered that any real formal 'world champion' would have to show proven testmatch dominance since test matches are considered to be the true test of cricketing skill.
There are various trophies between pairs of test-match playing countries (eg, 'The Ashes' between Australia and UK (I believe this is one of the longest running international sporting 'fueds' in the world), the 'Frank Warrell' trophy between Australia and the West Indies, and the Border-Gavaskar trophy between Australia and India). There have been proposals for a tennis or golfing style 'points' system to determine a world champion according to who has played who recently, etc. However, the rough rule of general concensus is that the West Indies were world champions through the 70's and 80's, whilst Australia have been world champions pretty clearly since the early 90's.
