In the states, I'd break up each day with baseball on the radio. I really, really miss coming home to the Yankees vs whoever on WCBS FM. I miss the commentators, I miss the history, I miss the pace of the game and the feeling of lazy summer evenings. I miss keeping the radio on by my bed until the wee hours when games were being played on the west coast.
Here, there is cricket. It's not played every day but it does have it's own charm, once you figure out what's going on. It's not perfect, and there doesn't seem to be rhythm to the schedule, which leaves me a bit in "cricket withdrawal" a few days a week. There is strategy, in a way, some excitement, some boredom, huge amounts of tradition and lots of things for an american girl to laugh at in her quest to find a replacement for her missing "boys of summer"....
The cricket ground is a large round field and in the center is the "pitch" - a dirt runway of sorts where the bowler (equivalent to the pitcher) bowls the ball. At the end of the pitch are two "wickets. stumps?" , of which each one is protected by a batter. At any given time there are two batters from the opposing team on the pitch, but only one is being "bowled" to at a time. The bowler is trying to knock over the bales and stumps, the batter is protecting them and at the same time hitting the ball in order to score any number of runs. When the batter wants to score a run, both batters run up and down the pitch until the fielding team has the ball under control. If the batter completes one length of the pitch, it counts as one run, etc. A hit that makes it to the boundary automatically scores 4 runs and a hit that makes it into the stands scores 6.
The batters are out if:
- the bowler knocks the stumps and the bales fall off (think of 3 posts with 2 small pegs balanced on top). This is usually obvious, although I have seen games where the ground was so hard that the posts just did not move after being whacked by the ball. Then the wicket keeper, (like a catcher) often tries to jump up and down next to the stumps in an effort to get them to fall over.
- The umpire deems that had the batter not been blocking the way, the bowler would have hit the stumps, (huh? this becomes accepted but I still think it's strange and very subjective)
- the batter hits the ball and it is caught
- the batter does not make it to the safe line on either side of the pitch: this is called being "run out". The fielding team can beat the runner by knocking over the bales before the "safe" line is crossed. This can be exciting as sometimes the guys way out in the field throw and hit the stumps. Most of the time they miss. Often, they appeal to the instant replay (3rd umpire) to see if the batter makes it safe across the line before the ball hits the stumps.
(author's note: I'm not keen on the 3rd umpire because in baseball they do not watch replays - they trust the umpires and that's that....)
The bowler changes, (usually) after an over, which consists of 6 bowls/throws. The score is read as such: 5/125 means there are 5 outs and 125 runs scored.
A batter who is out on their first swing gets what is known as a "duck" and they put the duck symbol on the scoreboard next to their name.
There are 3 different kinds of cricket game formats: tests, one day and 20/20.
- A test is a game that can last from 4 - 5 days. Each day consists of a morning and afternoon session, 2 tea breaks and lunch. It generally starts after 10 am and finishes
( to"call stumps" is the term) about 6pm. The players wear white, (which is the traditional uniform of cricket). The teams toss a coin to see who bats first. The idea is that the batters stay on the field until the other team has gotten 10 outs, or wickets. This can take quite some time, (up to 2 days). It's usually hot and the players mostly stand around and watch the ball when it is hit into their section of the field. There are not many heroic catches in test cricket. They are mostly waiting for the drinks beak. Once the first batting team makes 10 outs, they switch and then the opposing team has an opportunity to chase their score and see if they can make more points. In a typical test each team bats twice. If a batting team has a huge score, they can give the field to the other team in a very gracious gesture. Sometimes this can backfire. A good score is over 300.
- 1 day cricket is about the same, but each team gets 50 overs, (300 balls bowled to them) or 10 outs, whichever comes first. The teams generally wear badly designed colorful uniforms that hurt your eyes. One team gets the afternoon and the other the evening. Because the games are shorter, the fielders do get a bit more energetic and occasionally chase the ball. Some of them even slide and catch the ball when it seems like they can. Mostly, they are still signing autographs on the edge of the stands and waiting for the drinks break.
- 20/20 is cricket's answer to baseball - a game which finishes in about 3 hours and has a format which requires the fielders to chase after the ball since they are actively trying to keep the run count low. Each team gets 20 overs or 10 outs... as above.
Some things about cricket:
- The fielders do not wear gloves which I think leads to the low percentage of balls caught near the boundary - I mean, have you ever caught a fly ball barehanded? That hurts! I'd stand there and watch it too.
- The bowlers run from a fair distance off in the field before the throw the ball - they throw with a locked straight arm and the ball bounces before it is hit by the batter. All this running and they still throw slower than any major league fast baller.
- The announcers have all these terms like"fine square leg" which make no sense to me and even my husband sometimes admits that they are making stuff up to fill airtime.
- The 12th man on the team, (the extra player) has to carry the drinks out to field whenever the team celebrates an out by having everyone run together and slap hands. I often think they fake outs (which is quite common) sometimes so that they can get the drinks onto the field faster.
- The crowd is often more preoccupied with beach ball passing than watching the game......
At the MCG, they have people dressed up as seagulls on the sidelines and the crowd will throw them chips, (french fries) which the seagulls will then try to catch with their mouths. So classy.
All this, and I'm still looking forward to the one day cricket starting this afternoon. Pitchers and catchers report on Valentine's day, so I've still got a ways to go 'til the real boys of summer take the field.....sigh........
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