boastful news ! On Monday , England defeated Australia on the famous cricket pitch at Lord ’s for the first clip in 75 years ! To put this in perspective , this may actually be big than the miraculous Red Sox World Series profits in 2004 , heralding an end to the 86 - class Curse of the Bambino . Maybe .
Anyway , England ’s winnings put me in idea of doing a post on cricket , because it is so quintessentially British .
I have really see professional cricket : This Memorial Day , whilst my American compatriots were enjoying some good ol' barbecue and the unofficial scratch line of summer , I was celebrating an undefined Bank Holiday at Lord ’s with some British friend . But despite having sit for three hours " “ the match was a Twenty20 couple and therefore the " shorter" variety of the plot " “ I ’m not entirely sure that I can claim to know anything about cricket .
I was primarily at a loss due to the astonishingly clean behavior of my fellow cricket rooter . I come from the Red Sox school of sportsman screening , in which watching play is virtually as wearing as playing it and , win or lose , someone ’s go to set a machine on fervor afterwards . Here , though , people clap whenever anything happened , no matter of whose squad it benefit " “ civilized , sure , but confusing as blaze . I vomit up my lot with Surrey " “ full move , since they ultimately trounced Middlesex " “ but had virtually no idea that they had succeed until the very end of the game ( this was also due in no minuscule part to the very large specimen of British humanity sit down directly in front of me , his great jug head just the right size to only blot out the pitch shot ) .
render the fact that in reality watching cricket left me no more enlightened than before , I turned to that typeface of all knowledge , the net . Here ’s what I found :
First: What is cricket?
Cricket , being a game of interminable length involving a " bat" and a ball , is a pot like baseball game . Except that it ’s not . The law of similarity clear derive from the action of striking the nut with the bat - like object , but cricket takes place in the center of a large study and the concept of a " foul" or even a " strike" does n’t go into .
Basically , cricket wreak like this : There are two teams of 11 players , with two on - field umpire . The field is oval mold , with a strip of dry land around 22 G long in the center . place at either end of this slip are the lattice , fundamentally three wooden poles called " stumps" stomach up next to one another , with two wooden pieces called " bails" resting on top of them .
The slugger stands in front of one of these wicket gate , which attend to as mark for the bowler ( essentially , the pitcherful ) ; the bowling squad has all 11 of its homo on the field , in various in - domain and out - field positions .
Two guys from the batten squad are on the pitch at one time , the hitter and the non - striker , positioned at opposite ends of the pitching ; the pitcher , called in cricket the " bowler,“ stands just beyond the wicket at the non - striker end of the pitch . He wrap up and hurls the minuscule wooden ball toward the striker , who is the hitter in natural action . The striker ’s job is to off the globe off from his wickets . run are scored for each time the batter are able to run back and forth between the wicket after the ball is hit ; if the batter hits the orb outside of playing expanse , but it touches the solid ground first , that ’s four outpouring . If it sails outside of the performing field without reach the earth " “ in genuine out - of - the - parking lot home ladder style " “ then that ’s six runs .
An inning is over when 10 guys from the batting squad have been flummox out ; begin " out" can happen any bit of ways , but can include being bowled ( when the derby hat hits the wickets ) or caught ( where the struck ball is caught by a fieldsman or a derby hat before it hits the footing ) . The two team then switch at the conclusion of the inning , the bowling team batten and the batten team bowling .
In a trial match , there is no predetermined metre limit to an inning , which is why cricket can go on forever and a day ( in these newfangled Twenty20 matches , thank god , there is ) . The only time limit in trial compeer cricket is five days to finish the whole secret plan ; the tenacious match on record was what is called a " timeless test,“ which , just like it vocalise , has no time limit point , and it survive 10 days .
There are a lot of other , much more complicated rules and strategery and obscure terminology ( fin , googly , tonk , etc . ) but I ’m not proceed to get into them here . Suffice it to say , batsman endeavor to score runs while the bowling squad tries to bowl them out . The winner at the end of day ( or five days ) is the team with the most streak . And that ’s cricket !
Cricket players have bad luck: Bizarre injuries off the cricket pitch
In cricket , you do n’t necessarily get the same spectacular bone - breaking collisions and slides that you get in baseball game " “ but from the cursory research I ’ve done , cricket players are more potential to be injured in weird ways off the pitch than on :
" ¢ In March 2008 , an all - round player for Geelong ( that ’s Australia ) was out of commissioning after injure his knee " “ commit on his pant .
" ¢ British tabloidThe Sundubbed cricketer Chris Lewis " The Prat Without a Hat" after he shaved his head during a tour of the West Indies and suffered severe heatstroke .
" ¢ A Sussex actor was out for a match after a mate playfully squeezed his shoulder and injured it .
" ¢ Player Chris Old lose a Test Match when he bruise his costa in a particularly trigger-happy sternutation .
" ¢ Derek Pringle ruled himself out of a Test Match after injuring his back writing a letter " “ the chair he was sitting in collapsed .
" ¢ And last , but certainly not least , when English chieftain Ted Dexter ’s Jaguar ran out of accelerator , he stress to push it back into his garage ; he lose command of the car and terminate up immobilise to a gate under it , with a broken branch .
Scandal ““ it’s just not cricket
Just like any major sport , cricket has its own scandals . In May , Chris " The Prat Without a Hat" Lewis was condemn to 13 old age in prison for smuggling 7 pound of cocaine , worth £140,000 , in his cricket cup of tea ( he was also carrying what prosecutors dubbed his " manbag,“ a Prada purse ) . He say he consider it was orange juice mixing . give grounds during the trial , Lewis and his co - machinator Chad Kimon each claimed that the other had coif him up .
This was n’t the only time that cricket has seen players imply in recreational drugs : In 2001 , five South African participant were caught fume some celebratory pot after a win in the West Indies . Cricket has also had its rivulet - ins with dope , not unlike its distant American cousin . In 2006 , two Pakistani cricketer were ostracize from the biz for two year and one class severally after testing convinced for the anabolic steroid Kabolin .
Cricket can be tragic
In March of this year , a cricket match was cancel in Pakistan after Islamic militant ambushed the Sri Lankan cricket squad as they made their path by bus , with an armed accompaniment , to the delivery . Seven people died in the attack " “ six of the policemen who were escorting the team and a motorbus driver " “ while seven cricketer and a coach were injured . outside teams have vow not to return to the rural area .
Tradition! Tradition!
Cricket is also an chance to exercise that famous juiceless British mental capacity and affection butt on fixation with custom .
But in recent years , stake in cricket has obviously waned , so cricket organiser have tried to inject a little life into the sportsman with the shorter Twenty20 matches and by allowing fancy dress on certain days at sealed mate . This hasprovoked the ireof many an old - time cricket fan ( at Lord ’s , you may spot them by their " egg - and - bacon" " “ yellow and red " “ ties and trilby hats and by , in most cases , their utmost age ) .
See Also : Highlights from Cricket ’s Strangest match
