A girl's guide to cricket

Over at Mamamia Julie Cowdroy has been doing wonderful cheat sheets on important things like the election, Aung Sung Suu Kyi, Asylum seekers etc. So I thought I'd do one on something I know a little about: cricket! So here we go:

A Girl's Guide to Cricket:

 

Official terms in italics, layman's terms in (brackets)

I will explain based on the most tolerable form of cricket for newcomers, the One Dayer, {with notes on how the other forms differ.}

Types of cricket
There are three types of cricket. Test matches, Limited Overs Cricket (more commonly called One day Matches or One dayers) and T20s (said 'twenty''twentys').
Test matches take up to five days, One Dayers take (you guessed it) one day, and T20s take a few hours.

hint: If you are asked to attend a cricket match, make sure it's a T20. They are designed to be more attractive to a non-cricket tragic & have lots of music, fireworks and other excitement that would not be found at the other forms. Plus they only take an evening, instead of up to 5 days. You can pretend to be interested for an evening right?

Play
Cricket is a team game, with 11 players on each side. Each player must bat, but not all players bowl. Each team bats once. {In test cricket each team bats twice}
Each team must face 50 overs. An over is six balls. A ball is one guy bowling (throwing) the ball at a guy on the other team who is batting. So the bowler bowls the ball six times to the batter and that equals one over. Still with me?

Brett Lee (in weird bending over position) bowling to Sachin Tendulkar (left) at the Adelaide Oval.

So in one day cricket each side gets to bat for 50 overs. In T20 cricket each side gets 20 overs (hence the name) and in Test cricket each side gets to bat for as long as they like.

The aim of the batting team is to score more runs than the other team. The aim of the bowling team is to get the batsman out.

Runs: you score one run for each time you make it to the other end of the pitch (flat, level rectangle in the middle of the field). You must put your foot or bat on the other side of the crease (white line) for the run to count.

You get four runs if you hit the ball and it makes it to the boundary rope (or fence).

You get six runs if you hit the ball over the boundary rope (or fence) without bouncing first.

Getting out: (to loose your wicket) The aim of the bowling side is to get the batsman out. There are 10 ways a batsman can get out.

1. caught He hits the ball into the air and someone from the other team catches it before it touches the ground. 
2. bowled The bowler bowls (throws) the ball and it hits the stumps, knocking the bails off.
3. run out The batsman attempts to get a run, but before he puts his foot or bat across the crease someone on the other team takes the bails off the stumps with the ball (either by throwing it & hitting the stumps or by holding the ball & using that hand).
4. stumped The batsman does not have his foot behind the crease when the ball is being bowled and the wicketkeeper knocks the bails off the stumps with the ball.
5. timed out * The batsman takes too long to get out onto the field after the last wicket has fallen (guy has gotten out)
6. handled ball * The batsman touches the ball with his hands. Often you will see the ball fall at the batsman's feet and he will either kick it or use his bat to push it to an opposition player. If he picked it up with his hands he could technically be out, however it would be seen as unsporting behaviour for the other team to appeal to the umpire over this. Note: if the ball hits the batsman's hands during play, that counts as part of the bat, and therefore he can be caught out (#1)
7. LBW (leg before wicket) The most confusing of the dismissals (ways of getting out). Basically the batsman uses his leg to stop the ball from hitting the stumps.
8. Hit wicket The batsman hits the wicket with his foot, bat or anything else, and the bails fall off.
9. Hit the ball twice * The exception to this rule is that if the ball was going to hit the stumps you are allowed to hit it again to stop it but then you may not run.
10. Obstructing the field * The batsman deliberately gets in the way of someone from the other team.

*very unusual ways of getting out. I've never seen them.

Diagram of a cricket pitch. Note the popping crease (have to touch foot/bat behind to score run, also important in stumpings) and the stumps.

This may be a little too detailed.... weirdly it includes 'clothing' but not the bails! (on top of the stumps) The black dot in the middle of the middle stump is the stump camera & microphone. The person on the left is the wicketkeeper, and the batsman is on the right.

Scoring: The score is written with the number of wickets fallen (people out) before the slash / then the number of runs the team has scored.

For example Aus 4/183 means Australia has scored 183 runs and 4 of their batsmen have gotten out. Keep in mind there are 10 wickets to fall and the best batsmen bat first. {In Test cricket your best batsman will often come in at number 4} By the time you get to 8/something you can't expect the rest of the batsmen to score many runs as their specialty is bowling, not batting. (Everyone has to bat)

When a team has lost all their wickets (10 people have gotten out) it is the end of their innings. In One dayers and T20s each team gets one innings. The number of runs the team scores is their total, and the other team has a target of the first team's total plus 1. 

{In tests each team gets two innings. The aim of the game is to both: get the opposition out twice (or get 20 wickets) plus score more runs then them.}

A cricket mascot

This is the basics. I'll address more complicated issues such as fielding positions, different forms of bowling, illegal deliveries, umpires, ducks and strategies etc in further posts. 

Does that make sense?  Post any questions below & I'll try to get to them!