Thread: Cricket....

In cricket, batsmen are much harder to get out.

Unless they're English.

In six hours of play, you would expect to see an average of about 8 batsmen get out.

Unless they're English.

When I was 9 and about to be sent to the UK having been born in Hong Kong, I'll never forget my Dad sitting me down and saying "Son, you're going to England. You need to support a football team and understand cricket."

Well, I've been one of those die-hard Man Utd fans since then (one who was only born 7500 miles away from Old Trafford, so a bona fide one ), but I never properly understood cricket. It is without doubt the most obscure, mixed-up, bizarre game I've witnessed. Not only are the rules impenetrable, the scoring appears random and gargantuan, the equipment is bordering on sexual deviancy (willow bats that look like paddles for kinky bedroom games, red leather balls, all manner of padding with straps that, when put together, look like a gimp suit), and the terminology is just, well, bizarre.

• What is a Googly?
• What is a Chinaman (a term I objected to even at the age of 9!)?
• Where on the field is 'silly mid-off' and 'silly mid-on'? (That's just plain silly!)
• Why is a position called slip? And if you stand there, will you?
• And why do you turn into a Duck if you're out without scoring. And did you know you could do worse by becoming a Golden Duck?
• And how the hell has bowling the ball evolved into a move that resembles Forrest Gump trying to fly?
• There are countless hours of debate over whether a particular bowling action is illegal or not. Some Indian spin bowlers appear to want to redefine the bizarre action into something a human body cannot feasibly implement.
• The umpires are old, doddering, octagenarian men with large waists and probably short-sighted as hell. Oh, and they have to carry the players' jumpers for them like a big clotheshorse.
• Some cricket grounds have a tree right bang in the middle (e.g. Canterbury). What happens if you hit the tree? Well, you score 5. Normally you score 4 if you smash it out of the boundary, 6 if it does so without touching the ground, so I guess 5 is a fudge? You also get 5 if it hits other obstacles like a jumper a player has taken off if hot (see 'Umpires carrying jumpers' above).
• The Australians are unbeatable usually. Boring!
• Endless days of rubbing linseed oil into the bat and tapping it with a ball. Just sitting there. Tapping. And. Tapping.
• The bats can be Scoops or Double Scoops or Jumbos which school children constantly argue over which is better.
• If you are a spectator you better take the better half of a whole week off work to watch it.
• And then you sit there from dawn to dusk, with some sandwiches, lots of beer, and all the papers to read and do the crossword, or just talk with your neighbours, in fact do anything except watch apparently.
• And don't EVER try to play it or you will break fingers and get knocked unconscious.
• Oh, and for those thinking it's a bat and ball game, just to really confuse you it is perfectly legal to kick the ball.

As for England's performance.... I went to Lords to watch Day 2 of the Test match against South Africa about 3 years ago. The whole day nothing happened. Seriously. Nothing.

No-one one was even out until nearly 5.00 pm. The WHOLE day! Just some South African guy running up and down, endlessly, scoring some gargantuan number of runs. It was truly like watching paint dry.

The next day England were batting and SA took 8 wickets during play. I was at work.

I don't know why we bother.

OK I'm freakin confused. Baseball anyone?


The idea of batters running if they want, hitting if they want, watching TV if they want, playing cards if they want, is really foreign to me (but I'm trying). You can hit the ball anywhere? So the batter is really trying to defend the - what do you call it ?-- the sticks thing ? ---right but at the same time is trying to score runs.


In baseball the whole offense is based on the concept of a fair ball that forces runners to run. But here, all balls are fair and the runners aren't forced to run?

Jiminy Cricket !!! It's tough but I'm getting there.

Is it considered a game of leisure? Nothing seems forced.

So the batter's out if he obstructs a good pitch?
A batter's out if a ball is caught in the air?
Can you throw batter's out at the bases(?)


By the way "the seventh inning stretch in baseball is just a customary routine of people in the stands getting up and stretching, getting the last food and beer, between the halves of the seventh inning, before the end of the game (9th inning).

Justin