The Complete Guide To Understanding Cricket

The Complete Guide To Understanding Cricket

If you aren’t familiar with cricket, it can be a difficult game to follow. There are a number of elements similar to baseball, paired with others that are utterly unique and sometimes baffling. It can be difficult to understand what strategies the players are pursuing, and even fundamental questions like “who is winning?” don’t always have simple answers. But once you know the basics, cricket is great.

How The Game Is Played

Just like baseball, there is a batting team and a fielding team. One member of the fielding team hurls the ball at the batsman, who wields a wooden bat and attempts to hit the ball around the field, scoring runs either by running or hitting the ball into the crowd. The fielding team tries to achieve two complementary aims: to get the batsmen out, and to limit the number of runs scored by the batsmen.

The Rules of the Game

Each team comprises 11 players. All 11 of the fielding team’s players take the field, along with two from the batting team, and two umpires. The game takes place on a grass oval, roughly 150 meters long and 130 meters across (although it varies from ground to ground). In the middle of the oval is the ‘pitch’, a 22-yard-long strip of rock-hard earth covered by very short grass. At each end of the pitch stand three wooden stakes (‘stumps’ or ‘wickets’), with two wooden pieces (‘bails’) resting on top, giving the look of a small wooden castle.