Cricket

It's probably time I discussed this new interest of mine. It's rather bizarre really, because I never follow sports. However, I can't help but be rather fascinated by this strange British game. Cricket is apparently the most followed sport in the world, but only by Britain and its former colonies. Of course, India's made up of a billion people- and most of them are cricket fans.

Right now the cricket world cup is on. It's taking place in the West Indies, and we're now in the second stage, where the worst teams have been beaten and we're down to eight. Everyday at 2:30 the games start and whenever I'm at work, Greg and I take frequent breaks to check the scores on cricinfo.com. And of course, I've gotten a number of lectures on how the game is played, its history, and its general appeal. I've also gotten a promise of being taken to a game later this spring.

Cricket is... a little like baseball, but only a little. There are two batters up at a time, but the ball only gets thrown to one side. The two sides are marked by the wicket, which is a made up of three sticks of wood. To gain points, the batters must run from one wicket to the other, switching places, and if an odd number of runs happen, a different batter is up. The batters play until a wicket is "broken", which means the fielding team hits it with the ball. Then the current batter is out. But a batter can stay in play for a very long time if he's good. The wickets get hit ten times before the side gets out and each team bats twice.

However, this is in traditional cricket, which can go on for up to FIVE DAYS. For the world cup, they limit it to one day by using overs, which is six pitches (or bowls as they call them) So the fielding team throws 50 overs, meaning the bowlers throw 300 balls in an inning (though I'm not sure they call them innings), unless the other team is so bad that they get all ten wickets broken before the end.

Understand? No, I don't quite either. However, I'm having a good time trying to.