Who's down at Deep Backwards Square Leg? (Cricket in General)

Name: The Daz

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Product:	Cricket in General
Date:	06/09/07 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Surely there are too many to list...

Disadvantages: *thinking very hard of one*

Aah. The Smell of newly cut grass, the crack of willow on leather, the raised index finger, a short pitcher in the unmentionables...

(sorry, I was getting quite carried away with it all!).

Cricket - the greatest game ever. End of. No dissension, debate or argument allowed... Ok. I'll tolerate your views. (although you're clearly deluded if you believe otherwise).

I shall attempt to enlighten readers into the mystery, magic and wonder of the game, as well as the necessary history, rules and lexicon required to allow appreciation. I will, however try to keep it brief - I could easily manage 20,000 words if I rambled properly!

Shall we begin?

History:
Although Test Matches between international sides didn't start until 1877, the game has in fact been played in one form or another since the 13th Century - altering to it's present form throughout. The first recorded use of the game (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) was in 1550.
The English Domestic County Circuit is the longest running in the world and the first official club formed was Sussex in 1839.

Lexicon:
Right. You have a pitch, usually an Oval, generally a good 150 yards between the Boundaries. In the middle there is a Wicket, a strip of dried and hard grass 22 Yards long (a Chain in Imperial terms). At either end of the Wicket are a set of stumps - 3 vertical sticks of wood, on top of which rest 2 wooden Bails. There are Creases marked out in front of the stumps, between which the batsmen run.
The best example of Cricketing Lunacy is in the Fielding names. Deep Cover, Silly Mid-On, Mid-Wicket, Gully, Backward Point. Etc... It takes quite some listening to get used to these terms!
Bowlers have 6 balls in an Over, and are either Pace bowlers (Fast, Medium-Fast or Dibbly-dobbler), or Spinners (Legspin, Offspin, Orthodox and Chinaman).
I'm not making any of this up!

Rules:
Very simply - 2 Teams of 11 Players compete. There is a coin toss and the winning Captain must choose whether to Bat or Field (Bowl) first. He will take into account the weather, the condition of the pitch, the players both he and his opponent has, the state of the series they are playing in, and so on. Generally, Batting first is best in order to make a good score and put pressure on the other team.
2 Umpires adjudicate on the field, one standing at the stumps by the bowler, the other is the same distance from the batsman, perpendicular at the Square Leg position.
Aside from the Bowler and the Wicket Keeper (who stands behind the stumps with big gloves on), the other 9 players are deployed in the field at the Captain's whim - placed according to the Bowler's type, the Batsman's favourite scoring areas, and any plans/traps they may set to induce a wicket.
A batsman faces the bowler, and attempts to score runs, either by running between the wickets with his partner, or by hitting the ball to the Boundary without touching the ground (6 runs) or along the ground (4 runs).
The batsman can be dismissed by the fielding side in one of 10 methods, the most popular of which are:
Bowled - the bowler dislodges the bails from the batsman's stumps.
Caught - the batsman hits the ball in the air to a cunningly placed fielder.
Run-Out - a fielder hits the stumps with the ball whilst the batsmen are between the wickets.
LBW - Leg before wicket - the ball pitches in the line of the stumps and strikes the batsman's pads. The Umpire must decide if the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps, taking into account height, spin, bounce and if the ball grazed the edge of the bat also.
When a batsman is out, the next one comes in. There must always be 2 batsmen at the crease, and so there are 10 Wickets for the fielding side to take. This constitutes an Innings, after which the teams swop.
The side batting last must score 1 more run than their opponent, and the fielding team must take all the batting teams's wickets before they achieve this. Any other result is a Draw. (there are Ties in Limited Overs Cricket).

Versions:
The most well known variant of playing length is First Class Cricket - which varies in length from 3 -5 days. Set over 2 Innings it pits two professional teams aginst each other. Where the 2 teams are International, the game is called a Test Match.

Play lasts from between 10-11am, for 6hrs of playing or 90 overs, interspersed with a Lunch and Tea break - how spiffing!
One Day games take longer but are finished that day (Obviously).
The rules on playing times, Overs, Rain rules etc are hideously complicated, so I shan't even attempt to explain them here!

The Limited overs game (One Day Cricket), invented in the early 60s, has a few forms - commonly a 50 Over, 1 Innings per side game, but also the new and popular Twenty20 game. To increase the excitement and crowd appeal there are a few differences to First Class Games, including Coloured Clothing (Pyjamas!), a White Ball, fielding and bowling restrictions and, increasingly, music whenever something of note occurs.

Statistics
For International Batsmen - an Average of 45 is considered World Class. The Batting Average is calculated by dividing the aggregate runs scored in the player's career in those matches by the number of Innings, less the times the batsman was Not Out at the end of an Innings. (confused yet?).
Batsmen celebrate milestones of 50 and 100 runs (a Century). The highest First Class score ever is 501, and the best Test Score is 400.
A Strike rate above 50 (runs per 100 balls faced) is good, although in the Limited Overs game, it should be above 80.
Bowlers tend to have averages below 30 to be considered excellent. A bowling Average is determined by the runs conceded per Wicket taken.
Strike rate is how often they take a wicket, and in the Limited Overs game the Economy (Runs per Over) is important.

Players/Teams:
As in most sports - Australia are omnipotent. England don't do too bad recently, and did indeed win The Ashes (a biannual series against the Aussies) in 2005. The very best players over the history of the game make in excess of 10,000 runs or take 500 wickets. Some - All-Rounders, achieve notable feats in both Batting & Bowling.
A Team is usually made up of 6 batsmen (one of whom is the Wicket Keeper), 1 All-Rounder, and 4 Bowlers, of whom 1 is a Spinner. There are more all-round players in One Day Cricket as flexibility to meet the match situation is required.
There are 10 Full Members of the ICC (International Cricket Council, who administer the game): England, Australia, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies, Bangladesh, South Africa and Bangladesh. There are also some 150+ associate members who play various limited overs and first class games. Ireland & Scotland are among these.

Events:
Next week the Twenty20 World Cup takes place in South Africa for it's first time. The Caribbean hosted the World Cup (50 Over Cricket) in March.
The Full Member sides compete against each other once every 4 years Home & Away in a Series of between 2 and 5 Test Matches and 3-7 One Day Games and nowadays also a Twenty20 game or two.

Ramblings:
To me, the joy of Cricket lies in it's complexity and slightly strange lexicon. To hear commentators babbling on the radio about setting the trap, buffet bowling (help yourself!), or classical strokeplay is a perfect way to pass an afternoon when you are feeling lazy. Even with all the modern accoutrements: TV replays on giant screens, fancy dress Saturdays, the 15 degree flex rule, the game remains an authentic sporting contest. The teams employ tactics to tempt mistakes from the opposition, and the Test Match involves supreme concentration to grind out a result over 5 days.
The English County Game in particular has long standing rivalries (The Roses matches between Yorkshire and Lancashire for instance), and grips followers from April to September each year as teams vie for promotion and Glory.

If you want to know any more about the game: such as my friend's comment 'why is the score expressed as an equation?', then feel free to message me!
I hope you're not all asleep! Don't make me send the Dalek Chef round to waggle his eyestalk menacingly at you!

Summary: It's like Chess, with real people!