Fox Sports Guide to Cricket
by Ryan Bubear and Liam O'Hagan, FOXSports.com
Cricket is rich in gentlemanly tradition and its own colorful language. Australians have been heard to say that cricket is like vegemite — unless you grew up with it you'll never really understand it. That said, here is the Fox Sports Guide to Cricket:
The Basics:
A team contains eleven players. One team fields while the other bats. Each player is positioned in the batting order according to their abilities with the willow (bat). The top order features the specialist batsmen, the middle-order includes all-rounders (players who can bat and bowl), while the tailenders tend to be in the team for their bowling prowess, but they are still required to bat.
Unlike baseball, Batsmen bat in pairs, called a partnership, so there are always two batsmen 'in'. They stand at opposite ends of the hard 'pitch' or wicket in the middle of the oval-shaped field, trying to score runs and not get out. When one batsman is out his partner starts a new partnership with the batsman who replaced him. Once ten of the batsmen are out, the team's 'innings' is over and the opposing side goes in to bat. The eleventh batsman is described as being 'not out'. A team can declare its innings closed at any time if it wants to hurry the game along.
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| West Indian fast bowler Daren Powell in his delivery stride. Bowlers in cricket are allowed a run up, but must bowl with a straight arm. (AAMIR QURESHI/AFP / Getty Images) |
In Test cricket, the traditional five-day form of the game, each side gets the opportunity to bat twice (two innings). One-day cricket was invented for television. Each team has a maximum of 50 'overs' to score as many runs as it can. This is widely regarded as the most exciting form of the game and is used during the Cricket World Cup.
An over is six balls long. One bowler bowls an over, then another bowls one from the opposite end of the pitch.
Runs are added to the team total by hitting the ball into gaps between the fielders and physically running between the 'wickets' or 'stumps' — three thigh-high wooden stakes positioned at either end of a the pitch. The batsmen run the length of the pitch for one run. Automatic runs can be scored by striking the ball to, or over, the boundary of the field. Four runs accrue if the ball reaches the boundary after hitting the ground, and six if it sails over on the full.
Batsmen bat until they are dismissed. Unlike baseball, the batsman can have an unlimited number of hits in his innings or face as many balls as it takes to dismiss him. An individual will be proud of scoring a half century, (fifty runs or more). A century (100 runs) is a fine achievement.
Extras are runs that are not scored by a batsman. They include byes, no-balls and wides, which are all errors by members of the fielding team, and leg-byes, which are runs scored when the ball hits the body of the batsman and deflects into a space on the field, allowing the batsmen to complete a run.
Team scores are comprised of the individual scores of each batman and extras. In one-day cricket, a good team score is anything over 275 runs (five and half runs an over). In Test match cricket, 400 runs is usually a good innings, although these numbers vary depending on conditions.
The bowlers' roles are to dismiss the batsman and restrict their scoring. The fielders, including the wicketkeeper — who dons shin pads and a pair of catching gloves like a catcher in baseball — support the bowler and help effect dismissals.
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| Australian Adam Gilchrist in his Test-match whites and wicketkeeping attire, and as a batsman in his One-day colors. |
Dismissals:
The most common ways a batsman can be dismissed are:
1. Bowled: The bowled ball hits the one of the stumps (wickets) and dislodges at least one of the two bails placed across the top of the stumps.
2. Caught: The ball is caught off the batsman's bat or gloves by the bowler (caught and bowled), a fielder or the wicketkeeper (caught behind) before it touches the ground.
3. Leg Before Wicket (lbw): If a batsman misses the bowled ball and it hits part of his body, usually his legs, the fielding team will often appeal for lbw. This is one of the more contentious ways of getting out as the fate of the batsman depends on whether the umpire thinks the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps had the batsman not got in the way. Also, if in the opinion of the umpire the ball pitches outside the line of leg-stump, the batsman cannot be given out lbw.
4. Run out: Just in front of the stumps at either end of the pitch is a line called the popping crease. If a batsman attempting to take a run doesn't have part of his bat or body on the ground inside the crease before the fielding team has removed the bails on the adjacent stumps with the ball, the batsman will be run out.
5. Stumped: This occurs if the batsman moves outside of his crease as the ball is delivered and misses the ball, allowing the wicketkeeper to catch the ball and remove the bails before the batsman has returned to his ground.
6. Hit wicket: While playing the ball or taking evasive action, the batsman removes at least one bail with any part of his body or equipment.
An over:
An over is six balls bowled from one end of the pitch. At the end of each over the field turns over an a new bowler starts bowling a new over from the other end of the wicket. The batsman who was not on strike at the end of the previous over, with start the new over on strike.
The umpire can add extra balls to the over if he judges the bowler has bowled a no-ball (his foot was in front of the popping crease at the end he was delivering from) or a wide (out of reasonable reach of the batsman). No-balls and wides also cost the fielding team an extra run, as well as an extra ball and are particularly costly in One-day cricket. A batsman can only be dismissed by a run-out off a no-ball.
PHOTOS: Cricket Umpire signals
The ball:
A cricket ball is hard and has several raised stitched seams running concentrically around its equator. Unlike baseball, the bowler wants the ball to hit the pitch before reaching the batsman. This is because if the ball lands on its seam it will often change direction after it bounces, deceiving the batsman. Bowlers will also polish the ball on one side of the seam to help it swing during its flight. Roughing up the other side of the ball to help it swing is illegal ball tampering.
Bowling:
Bowlers can be roughly divided into fast bowlers and spinners (slow bowlers). Fast bowlers bowl off a longer run-up than spinners and depending on the speed of their delivery are either 'fast' or 'medium' paced. They try to defeat the batsman with speed and by getting the ball to swing in the air, like a curve ball in baseball, or seam (move laterally) off the pitch.
Spinners have a run-up of only a few steps and try to beat the batsman with the flight of the ball, and by getting it to spin or turn as it hits the pitch.
The wicketkeeper will usually stand at the stumps when a spinner is bowling. This is to restrain the batsman by threatening him with dismissal by a stumping.
The ball must be bowled with a straight-arm action. Delivering with a bent elbow will cause suspicion as this could be close to a 'chucking' or 'throwing' action.
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| ( / Getty Images) |
Fielding:
There are eleven players on the fielding team. The bowler and wicketkeeper are set positions. The other nine fielders are spread out in various positions in a 360-degree circle around the pitch. The captain can place his field depending on his desire to be attacking or defensive, but by design it is impossible to position a field without leaving some holes for the batsman to score.
In One-day cricket there are fielding restrictions:
First 10 overs: At least two players in catching position (slips, gully, short cover) and no-more than two players outside the 30-yard circle.
After 10 overs: A maximum of five players outside the 30-yard circle, except two five-over power plays when no-more than two players are permitted outside the 30-yard circle. These are elected at the discretion of the fielding captain.
Major teams:
The ten major Test-playing nations are Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, England, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the West Indies (Caribbean nations), Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
In One-day cricket these teams usually play in the following colors:
Australia: yellow and green
South Africa: green and yellow
Pakistan: green and white
England: blue and red
India: sky blue and yellow
New Zealand: black and grey
Sri Lanka: navy blue and yellow
West Indies (Caribbean nations): purple and white
Zimbabwe: red and black
Bangladesh: green and red.
The first official Test was played between Australia and England in Melbourne in 1877. They play for 'The Ashes', although Australian dominance has taken the sting out of this rivalry in the last 20 years. Cricket's most intense rivalry is the one between nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan.
In certain limited-overs competitions, like the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup, other smaller nations like Canada, the Netherlands and Kenya compete on the world stage. The U.S. made its international debut at the Six Nations Challenge in March 2004, fielding a team primarily made up of immigrants from cricket-playing nations.
The tea-towel test:
If we have done our job in explaining the game this anonymous rhyme from a souvenir tea towel should make sense:
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.
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