As an American, I can understand most parts of British culture, but the one thing that still confuses me is Cricket.



My limited perspective suggests that it is some sort of zany combination of baseball, soccer and quidditch. Some guy bowls the ball at a goal, then another guy hits it with a stick, and then they run back and forth for some reason while other people catch the ball.

So I have a few questions for those knowledgeable:

1. What the hell is going on?
2. Do you get the same feeling from seeing, say, American Football?

cba to explain cricket but basically it's the worst possible sport in the world to watch on tv etc and really fantastic to play on a sunny day no lie

also american football isn't that confusing to us I don't think, it's pretty similar to rugby except they do all that STOP START STOP START shit for ad breaks that makes it totally unwatchable. I don't understand why they wear helmets/all that armor tho

imagine getting clotheslined by two 8 foot tall, 350lb mutants coming in at you in opposite directions while you're running at full speed

they are getting injuries/ surgeries all the time and that's with the armour on

imagine getting clotheslined by two 8 foot tall, 350lb mutants coming in at you in opposite directions while you're running at full speed

We have a phrase for that kind of behaviour. "it's just not cricket"

We have a phrase for that kind of behaviour. "it's just not cricket"

alternative answer: rugby

mark is right though, cricket is a game better played in the park than professionally!

mark is right though, cricket is a game better played in the park than professionally!

I ALSO agree, it's HORRIBLE to watch professional cricket, but I remember when I used to play it back in school... so many good times!

Holy shit I was wondering this same thing yesterday, yesterday was the first time I had really seen anything where people were playing cricket (lol grange hill) and I couldn't figure out what was going on.

Cricket I guess could be compared to baseball. It's fairly simple. You have two teams, which get 2 innings in fielding and batting. Their are two batsmen playing at a time and their aim is to get as many runs as possible. This is achieved by hitting the ball as far as possible and to run to each end of the wickets. If a fielder stumps out the wickets whilst no one is in the square (area of safety), then the batsman is out. The batsman take turn in batting according to where they end up after running. Hitting it out of the boundary with it hitting the floor is 4 runs, hitting it out of the boundary without it touching the ground earns 6 runs.

Other ways for the batsmen to be out are catching the ball, bowling the ball to hit the stumps/wickets, or if the ball hits the player's leg, the umpire (referee) will judge whether the ball would have hit the wickets had his leg not been there. This is called Leg before wicket, or LBW.

In Test Cricket the batting teams innings lasts until their last batsmen is out. They can sometimes go on for a few days at a time. After this they become the fielders and vice verser.

In one day cricket, each team has a set number of bowls to make as much runs as possible. The games are quicker and the batsmen will usually take more risks as they race against time.

Anyway, yeah that's basically it. The team with most runs wins.

I pretty much never follow cricket and am surprised I still remember the rules. It's a gentleman's game.

I would never watch it but when I played it last summer it was really fun. We alternated the roles of batting, bowling and catching so the variety was really nice. I live in England now and even though I don't know anyone who plays it regularly there does seem to be a fascination with it from foreigners - the tourists walking by took pictures of us as we played.

Lyndon, what's a wicket and how do you stump it out. And who cant be in the safety square? the fielder or the batsman?

mark is british ahahahaha

Where did you think I was from eric of "nerbraska"

ok you have a small especially flat mown bit of ground called the pitch (that's the yellow rectangle on the diagram). There are wickets at either end of the pitch. wickets are 3 wooden posts (stumps) shoved in the ground with 2 smaller bits of wood (bails) balanced horizontally between them. Two batsmen of the team that is batting are in play at once, each standing by a wicket. The other team are fielders. One of the fielders bowls (throws) the ball in a crazy little explosion of movements, his aim is to knock over the wicket which the batsman tries to defend by hitting the ball away - if he knocks it over the batsman he's bowling at is out. Another fielder is standing behind the wicket as a backstop. When the ball is hit the 2 batsmen have to run between the wickets crossing over in the middle as many times as they think they can without a wicket being put in danger because as long as they're not in their "crease" (small area by each wicket) a fielder can collect the ball and knock the bails off the wicket. if a fielder catches after it's been hit without it bouncing that batsman is out. If the ball is hit out of the boundaries without bouncing it's worth 6 runs without running and 4 if it does bounce.

there's more to it than that (most of the extra stuff involves Cucumber Sandwiches) but that's the basics

Anyway, yeah that's basically it. The team with most runs wins.

not necessarily but fuck lets not get into that.

People go crazy for cricket, man. Everybody watches cricket on TV here or try to go to the games. I used to play a lot when I was little. Nice memories of playing cricket at the beach. Cricket rules and baseball sucks because all you need to play cricket is a little space, a bat, a ball and something to use as a wicket (we used all sorts of shit, from like chairs to just sticking branches into the sand). And the rules are very simple. If you're playing it casual, it can be as short or long as you want and with any number of people (all you need is a batsman, bowler, couple of fielders and a wicketkeeper). I was always a good batsman but a real pie thrower when it came to bowling. I used to LBW too much, though.

Fun times like when kids used to soak the ball and you would hit it and it would spray water in your face.

To sum up cricket in a few words: Bat, hard ball, not a spectator sport.

Nah, you could use a wind ball too. I never liked using the cork balls. You ever had a fiery full toss or haul a cherry beamer at you? That shit ain't funny.

(Yeah I'm a pussy and bad childhood experience of getting a fuckin ball in my face..... I prefer to play with windballs heh)

phew, at least we know where we are with football, right?

...

oh wait football can be hilariously complicated too: