Monday, July 04, 2011

#2: Blog about cricket

In the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ lecture, cricketer and former Sri Lankan team captain Kuman Sangakkara reportedly delivered a scathing criticism of Sri Lanka’s political struggles and reflected on the “the heavy responsibilities on Sri Lankan cricketer to promote reconciliation after the end of the civil war that blighted the country.”

And here I thought cricket was just a bunch of guys tossing a ball and running back and forth. Obviously I have much to learn. My husband has requested I blog about cricket, but as you will see I know very little and 365 words cannot hope to convey the complexity of this sport. But I’ll take a bat at it…

Cricket is a game played with a ball and a bat. That much I did know. However, add in wickets, bowlers, overs, dismissals, etc... and I quickly get confused.

Two teams with 11 players each face off on an oval field at the centre of which is a 22-yard long pitch. The team at bat will try to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields in attempts to dismiss the batsmen and thereby limit scoring. Once the batting side is all out, the inning is over and the teams switch places.

The bowler will toss a ball from one end of the pitch toward the batsman who will hit it and run. A run is scored by the batsman hitting the ball with his bat, running to the opposite end of the pitch without being ‘dismissed’. There are also wickets at each end of the pitch – stumps that are hammered into the ground and topped with 2 ‘bails’.

There are multiple ways in which a batsman can be dismissed, most of which I do not understand, but which can include the bowling team catching an ungrounded batted ball or knocking a bail off the wicket. But batsmen who have been dismissed must leave the field and be replaced by the next batsman on the team. An inning ends when 10 batters have been dismissed.

There are two batters playing at the same time, something about bowlers only throwing a certain number of overs, strategic things the ‘wicket-keeper’ does…

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