Monday, July 16, 2007

The Aim of Cricket

First in a 473 part series on the game of Cricket. Posted while waiting for traffic to die down - nothing mucks up rush hour traffic like a cubs night game. From our friends at the Beeb.


The aim of cricket

Cricket is basically a simple game - score more than the opposition.
Two teams, both with 11 players, take it in turns to bat and bowl.
When one team is batting, they try and score as many runs as they can by hitting the ball around an oval field.
The other team must get them out by bowling the ball overarm at the stumps, which are at either end of a 22-yard area called a wicket.
The bowling team can get the batsmen out by hitting the stumps or catching the ball.
Once the batting team is all out, the teams swap over and they then become the bowling side.
Each time a team bats it is known as their innings. Teams can have one or two innings depending on how long there is to play.
The Ashes Test matches are over five days so England and Australia have two innings each to score as many runs as they can.
Whoever scores the most runs wins. But a cricket match can be drawn too.
That happens when the team bowling last fails to get all the batsmen out.

Next time, the 10 ways a batsmen can be called out.

7 comments:

Sarge said...

But where's the AIM?

I do not understand this post.

Smiff said...

I don't get it either, and neither will any other American. So you can forget about cricket (how are insects involved?) ever catching on here. Is there another form of NASCAR we can import? Folks like to see cars driving around in circles for hundreds of miles. Nuttin' complicated about dat. Sorta like dem french fried potaters.

Fungster said...

Sigh. I was told Americans were too dumb to get it. "But they get Baseball" I replied. "Surely they will get this too." The game is allegedly picking up here, due to the immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. We'll start watching them, coz they look like terrists, and then we'll pick up the glorious game. Until then, my efforts are lost on you dumb 'Mericans. Wow, look at that, drop the A, change the r to an x and you got Mexicans. So we aren't that different after all.

k-mad said...

If they wanted the game to be understood, it wouldn't all be so suspiciously inscrutable.

Now if the batsmen were to start beating each other over their heads, it might stand a chance here.

k-mad said...

"Next time, the 10 ways a batsmen can be called out."

If none of them involve roller skates, plummeting downhill at frightening speeds, fiery crashes, eating gigantic piles of hot dogs, or chronic post-concussion syndrome, this list is probably a non-starter.

Corms said...

Can a batsman be put out by an IED?

Fungster said...

Well, if the IED hit the batsmen's front leg, and he wasn't playing a defensive shot, and the IED would have hit the wicket had it not hit his leg (got all that?), then he can be out LBW, or leg before wicket. Otherwise batsmen would just put their leg in front of the wicket and swing away all day, knowing that if they missed the IED would hit their leg.

Oh, I forgot to mention, since the terrists started playing cricket, batsmen's pads, bats and helmets are now made using reinforced armor. It really cut down on the fatalities...