Cricket (game)

Cricket is a bat and ball game played between two teams of eleven. At international level, it exists primarily in two forms: Test cricket (played over five days) and one-day cricket (a shortened form of the game, with each team batting one innings of up to 50 overs).

Cricket is also played at provincial and county levels, and traditional matches between village and public house teams are still played in summer on the village greens of England.

Despite a low profile in the United States, where baseball is the dominant bat and ball sport, on a global scale cricket is only surpassed by soccer in terms of popularity; it is the primary spectator sport in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the West Indies and of major importance in England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and in many other places that were historically affected by British colonial influence.

The Pitch

Cricket is played on a pitch or green, essentially a flat grass playing field. As imperfections in the playing surface may affect the behavior of the ball, the green is considered high maintenance as it has to be regularly rolled, watered and cut to ensure suitability for play. A groundskeeper is usually employed for this purpose. As regular play often wears out the grass around the wicket, this area has to be returfed, sometimes several times a season. The saying, "If there's grass on the wicket, play on" refers to this.

Modernisation

Attempts to modernise the game in recent years, such as introducing luridly coloured team uniforms instead of the traditional cricket whites, and limiting the number of overs to be played still further, notably by the Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, have been met with widespread derision, and for the most part the game remains essentially unchanged from its original form, the only major recent innovations being the introduction of high-tech protective headgear in response to the hazards of modern fast-bowling techniques. Cricket balls continue to be made from cork and leather, and the bats from willow treated with linseed oil.

Test cricket - an overview

The game begins with the toss of a coin between the two captains. The winning captain then elects to bat or field.

The size of the field of play varies widely between cricket grounds, but the pitch in the centre is always 22 yards long and 10 feet wide. At either end of this pitch are two sets of wickets, consisting of three wooden posts (stumps) upon which rest two wooden bails. Around the edge of the field of play lies the boundary rope.

Two batsmen (the openers) take to the field accompanied by the entire fielding side and two umpires. The batsman who is to receive the first ball is on strike and takes guard in front of his wicket. His non-striking partner waits at the other end of the pitch.

The fielding side nominates a bowler who has six balls (six balls = one over) with which to dismiss the batsman. Bowlers must bowl overarm and may not bowl consecutive overs. A day's play consists of 90 overs (540 balls), usually divided into three 2 hour sessions with breaks for lunch and tea.

The batsman’s aim is to score runs whilst protecting his wicket. Generally speaking, in order to score a run, he must first hit the ball. He and his partner must then decide whether or not they can run to each other’s end of the pitch before the fielding side have time to break either wicket with the ball. They may run as many times as they are able per hit and the on strike batsman scores one run for his team each time they do so.

If the ball reaches the boundary rope, the batsman automatically scores four runs. If it clears the rope without first touching the ground, he scores six runs.

A batsman can be dismissed (given out) in a number of different ways. The most common are:

• Bowled – the ball hits the wicket and removes the bails direct from the bowler’s delivery.
• Caught – the batsman hits the ball and it is caught by the fielding side before it touches the ground.
• LBW (leg before wicket) – the batsman fails to hit the ball and it strikes him in such a way that the umpire judges it would have gone on to hit the stumps. N.B. This mode of dismissal depends on a number of other factors – see below for a fuller discussion.
• Run out – see below.
• Stumped – see below.

The batting side must always have two batsmen operating in partnership. Thus, although they have eleven players, once ten wickets have fallen they are all out and their innings is over. The batting and fielding sides then swap roles and this cycle is repeated so that both teams have two opportunities to bat.

In order to win, a team must dismiss the opposition twice (i.e. take 20 wickets) and have scored more runs within the five days. A match is drawn if either team fails to dismiss the other twice, irrespective of how many runs may have been scored.

Scoring

The scoring of matches, and especially the way results are presented, can sometimes be confusing. As an example, let us imagine that, at the end of the first day’s play, Sri Lanka have scored 286 runs and have lost 5 wickets. This would be written as 286-5.

Playing Australia, the match pans out as follows:

• Sri Lanka – 1st innings: 431
• Australia – 1st innings: 390

• Sri Lanka – 2nd innings: 307

Australia now need 402 runs to win. At the end of the 4th day, they find themselves 100-8 in their 2nd innings. Thus, they require 209 more runs to win on the final day with 2 wickets in hand.

If Pakistan are bowled out for a 2nd innings total of 102, then they would have fallen short by 66. India would be said to have won by 400 runs.

If, however, Pakistan reached their target only having lost another three wickets (402-6), they would be said to have won by 4 wickets.