



Cricket Explained (An American Viewpoint)

Cricket explained from an American Viewpoint - PART 1 I'll take a stab at this. As an American, perhaps I can explain in a way more easy to understand to fellow Yanks. In a cricket match, there are two sides with eleven players each. There are two main varieties of cricket, regular cricket and "one-day" cricket. One day cricket is a recent invention and I'll talk about it separately later. The length of a cricket match can be whatever. Generally, the more important the match, the longer. The longest matches are the international ones, where one country pits 11 players against another country. These matches are called "tests" and last five days. They usually play eight to ten hours a day, so it's quite a long game. Scoring is in "runs" like baseball but at a much higher rate. In a test match it's quite common for each side to score over five hundred (!) runs. In a cricket match each side (teams are called "sides") is up twice. The first team bats, the second team bats, the first team bats, the second team bats, and whaddaya know, it's five days later. Whoever scores the most runs wins, of course. What baseball calls a "half-inning," cricket calls "innings." So the first team has its "first innings," then the second team (whoops! side) has its "first innings", the each side has its "second innings." This is what happens when a side has its innings: they send up their first *two* in their batting order. In cricket, two "batsmen" are up at a time, not one. They bat and bat and bat and bat until one of them is out. Then he sits down, and the third man in the order replaces him. Then those two bat and bat and bat until one of them is out. Then that person is replaced by the fourth person in the order, and so on. This goes on until ten of the eleven are out. Then the innings are over, because the last person cannot bat alone, you need two to bat in cricket. After ten people are out, the other team has their innings. Cricket in played with the batsmen in the middle of an oval shaped field (the "cricket ground"). There is no foul ter- ritory in cricket. You can hit the ball in any direction, including directly behind you. Cricket bats have a flat edge (well, it's slightly rounded) so that the batsman can direct the ball in a preferred direction. Batting in cricket is way more involved than in baseball. There are several different "strokes" (not "swings"), and batsmen are often known for being good at particular ones rather than others. Cricket is the game that gave us the saying "dif- ferent strokes for different blokes" (true!). So how do two guys bat? OK. In cricket, there are no bases. Each batsman is standing at either end of a rec- tangular area in the middle of the cricket ground, kind of long and thin like a bowling alley (not *that* long and thin). Here's where the real cricketers will get me: I think the central area, which is called the "pitch", is about 66 ft. long and 10 ft. wide. Batting is like this: one batsman receives the ball (I'll say how very shortly) and hits the ball in any direction to the outer part of the cricket ground. While the fieldsmen are chasing the ball and trying to throw it back to the center, the two batsmen *change places*. This scores one run. If they have time, they change places again. That scores another run. If they have time, they change places again, etc. -------------------------- | | B1| |B2 | | -------------------------- In the above diagram, the rectangle is the pitch and B1 and B2 are the batsmen. Say B2 hits the ball. While it's away from the center, B1 and B2 run and change places as many times as possible. Each time they do, they score one run. The outer edge of the cricket ground is marked with a rope. This is called the "boundary." If a hit ball touches or goes over this rope to the outside, it scores four runs automatically without the batsmen having to run at all. If a batsman hits a fly ball that lands outside the rope, that scores six runs automatically. These are known as "fours" and "sixes" and also "boundaries." Incidentally, if the ball is hit just far enough for the batsmen to change places once, scoring one run, this is called a "single." In cricket, the pitchers are called "bowlers." Here are the main differences from baseball: Bowlers cannot *throw* the ball. They must bowl it. The crucial difference is: when you throw a ball, at the end of the motion you are straightening your elbow. When you bowl, your elbow is straight almost the whole time (except at the very beginning) so you're making this wide circular arc with your arm. You can bowl overarm or underarm, but 99.99% of the time the ball is bowled overarm. When you bowl the ball toward the batsman, it's OK for the ball to bounce off the ground before it reaches him. In fact, 99.9% of the time, this is exactly what happens. In cricket, unlike baseball, the bowler can take a running start. In fact, the "fast bowlers," as they're called, are running at a flat-out sprint when they release the ball. Where are they? They are on the opposite side of the pitch from the batsman who is going to bat. How do you decide which side of the pitch? I'll explain that shortly. -------------------------- B1| | BL| |B2 WK | | -------------------------- Here's the same picture from before, with the bowler "BL" drawn in. The batsman who's not batting is standing off to the side, which is what really happens. The bowler has to release the ball before he crosses the line. Remember the bowler is not just standing there, he has run in from 'way outside your CRT :) I've just drawn him in where he approxi- mately is when he releases the ball. That guy "WK" behind the batsman is the wicketkeeper, the cricket version of the catcher. The wicket (more on what that is later) is directly behind the batsman, directly in front of the wick- etkeeper, and actually there's one on each side. So, we can see now what the team that's "out in the field" is doing. One guy's bowling, one's the wicketkeeper, the other nine are standing at strategic spots all the way around the cricket ground. Wow! I *think* I'm now ready to explain how the game is played! Wasn't it worth the wait? Here goes: In cricket, there are no balls and strikes. Instead of try- ing to "strike out" the batsman, the bowler is trying to "take his wicket." Instead of a strike zone, there is a wooden thing called a "wicket" directly behind the batsman. It has three vertical pieces and two horizontal ones and looks like this: ----- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The vertical pieces are called "stumps" and the crosspieces "bails." The whole thing is about two feet tall and maybe nine or ten inches wide. When you hit the wicket with the ball one or both of the crosspieces will fall off. This is central to getting a batsman out. Pay attention, this is the crux of the matter here: the bowler bowls the ball to the batsman in such a way as to try to knock the wicket over. The batsman isn't just trying to score runs, he's "defending his wicket." Listen carefully, this is almost always the point that drives baseball players crazy: when the batsmen hit the ball in cricket, they DO NOT HAVE TO RUN!!! If the batsman hits the ball and it only goes ten feet, and there is no chance for him and his "partner" to change places, they don't. They just stand there. At first, that sounds like the weirdest thing, but you have to look at it in the con- text of protecting your wicket. If the bowler bowls the ball really really well, it may be all the batsman can do but protect the wicket. Remember, in cricket you keep bat- ting until you're out ("your wicket is taken") so this is vitally important! Remember when I said in cricket the batsmen have lots of different strokes? Well, they're classified as "defensive strokes" and "offensive strokes." The defensive strokes are not designed to score any runs, but rather to dribble the ball away a few feet, protecting the wicket. Now I have to explain about "overs." Before I said I'd get around to telling you how they know which side to throw from. This is it. A cricket innings is divided into "overs." In one over, a bowler delivers six balls from the same side of the cricket pitch. When this is done, a dif- ferent bowler delivers six balls from the other side. That's the next over. Then a different bowler from *that* one (might be the first bowler, but doesn't have to be) bowls the next over from the first side again. -------------------------- | | B1| |B2 BL1 | | BL2 -------------------------- Are we clear? In over #1, bowler 1 (BL1) bowls from left to right six times. Then, in over #2, BL2 bowls from right to left six balls. Then, in over #3, BL1 (or somebody else) bowls from left to right six balls. Who bowls is a strategy thing. The only catch is, one bowler can't bowl one over, then run over to the other side and bowl the next over. Overs are also very important in cricket statistics (like baseball, cricket is statistics-laden). You see things like runs per over, etc. Also they're used to time things "you wouldn't believe what happened in the 37th over", you'll hear people say. Now if BL1 bowls the ball to batsman 2 (B2) and B2 gets an even number of runs (including 0) he will face the next ball also. But if B2 gets an odd number of runs, he and B1 will be on the opposite sides of the pitch from where they started, so on the next ball, BL1 would actually be bowling to B1. If B1 hit an odd number of runs, but it was the *last* ball of the over, he would again wind up facing the next ball, but on the other side of the pitch, and from the bowler BL2. There are several other ways a batsman can be made out besides having the wicket knocked over by the bowled ball. Here are some of the more common ones: If the batsman hits a fly ball and it is caught, he is out, just like in baseball. If the ball hits the batsman's leg and an umpire rules it would have hit the wicket if the leg hadn't been there, the batsman is out because he must "defend his wicket" only with his bat, not with his leg. This is called "lbw" which stands for "leg before wicket." The batsmen are only "safe" (the cricket term is "making your ground") when they are on the *outside* of the outer lines which demarcate the pitch (actually, the pitch has more lines than I've drawn, but it'll do for now). When either batsman is inside the lines, such as when they're running to exchange places, they can be made out by knocking over the wicket closest to them. There is no tagging in cricket. Also, when the batsman makes a stroke, his momentum may carry him inside the line. If he's missed the ball, but the ball hasn't hit the wicket, the wicketkeeper may have caught it. In this case, the wicketkeeper can get the batsman out by knocking over the wicket (the wicketkeeper is standing directly behind the wicket, which is directly behind the batsman) before the batsman can get back across the line. Here's some odds and ends: the wicketkeeper wears a leather glove on *each* hand. The fieldsmen do not wear any sort of glove. When the batsmen run in cricket, they take their bats with them. To "make their ground" (be in safe terri- tory) it is not necessary for them to physically cross the line, all they have to do is touch safe territory with the tip of their bat. In fact, when batsman score more than one run at a time in cricket, you'll see them run to the other side, stop before they get to the line, touch their bat just over the line, and then turn and run back. Review :-) Cricket is played by two sides of 11. Each side is up twice. The first side is up, they send two guys to the field. The two batsmen stand at either end of the rectangular pitch. The bowler delivers the first ball of the first over. The batsman tries to hit the ball and/or defend his wicket. He hits the ball in any direction in an oval-shaped field with a relatively flat-bladed bat. If he hits the ball, he does not have to run. If he hits the ball a little, he and his partner change places. If he hits it far enough, he may get a "boundary." If he gets out (wicket knocked over, fly ball caught, etc.) he leaves the field and is replaced by the next guy in the batting order. But the two men keep batting until one of them is out. When ten men are out, the innings is over and the other team is up. When each team has been up twice, the game is over. If it's a test match, five days have elapsed. The team with the most runs wins. As in baseball, if the last team is having their last innings ("bottom of the ninth") and they surpass the other team's run count, the game ends immediately at that point. One new piece of terminology: two batsmen are up at a time in cricket. The one who is actually facing the next ball is called the "striker." He is also known as being "on strike." A piece of cricket strategy: recall that the striker is out "lbw" if the ball hits his leg, and the umpire rules it would have hit the wicket if the leg hadn't been there. Well, the bowler is well aware of this fact. A large part of the bowler's strategy is to try and spin the ball around the striker's bat and into the wicket. But you also need to know that a large part of the bowler's strategy is also to try and spin the ball around the striker's bat and into his leg! When a batsman is given out lbw you'll often hear that he was "trapped lbw". This is an acknowledgment of the fact that the bowler did it on purpose. Also the "on" side in cricket is also called the "leg" side. And yet another thing I forgot: how international teams are chosen. Each of the cricket-playing nations (I'll mention these in the next post) has a national board known as the "selectors" who choose who will represent that country in the next international match. Remember, there's no substitution in cricket except in certain cases of injuries. So the selectors decide who exactly will play. From what I have personally seen, I think the selectors take more collective shit than anyone else connected with cricket. You haven't heard anything until you hear a few cricket fans start talking about their nation's selectors. OK, new stuff: I already told you that the length of a cricket match varies. How it works is: the length of the match is agreed upon before the match starts. For example, in a test match, the agreed-upon time is five days. When the five days are up, the match is over. So, while there is no rigid "clock" as in American football, cricket matches do have an implicit time limit. If a cricket match is not completely finished when time runs out, the match is a draw, no matter how lopsided the score may be. This has strategic consequences. Supposing in a test match the first side has their first innings, and they are so good they bat and bat and bat and bat for five days, they've scored over a thousand runs and the other side hasn't batted yet. Guess what! The game's a draw! You didn't win! Well, cricket has a way around this, it's called "declaring." At any time the captain of the team that is batting may "declare" that their innings are over, even though maybe they are only in the middle of the batting order. The team immediately takes the field, and the other team has their innings. So, suppose you're the captain of the first side to bat in a test match. Your team bats and bats and bats for the first two days, and you've only had six wickets taken. You could keep batting until your other four wickets are taken, but you're worried that the game won't finish in five days. For the game to finish, of course, you have to take all ten wickets of the opposing side *twice*. So, you declare. This gets you immediately to work on the job of taking the other side's wickets. Other cricket matches, below the skill level of international cricket, are allocated less time than five days. This is because as the skill level goes down, the batsmen aren't as good and it's easier to get them out, so the whole thing takes less time. Oh, by the way...suppose during a cricket match it starts to rain and play stops waiting for the rain to stop. Supposing during a test match it rains for two days straight. Surprise! The time is NOT MADE UP! Only got three days to play a five- day match? Better hurry! Are we having fun yet? Time to move on to the exciting topic of "extras," also known as "sundries." In baseball, not every pitch goes perfectly. There are wild pitches, passed balls, balks, etc. Weird things happen in cricket too, and collectively they are called "extras." The main ones are "no balls", "wides", "byes", and "leg-byes." A "no ball" results when the bowler bowls the ball illegally. There are several possibilites here. For example, if the bowler throws the ball, rather than bowling it, that is a "no ball." A "wide" is another type of illegal ball, one that is bowled so far wide of the batsman that the umpire feels it is unreachable. The penalty is the same in either case. The batting team is awarded one run, and the illegal ball is *not counted* as part of the over. OK? An over is six balls. The bowler bowls three times. There's three left in the over. Then he bowls a wide or a no-ball. There's *still* three balls left in the over. Now in cricket statistics (which I'll have a section on later) the runs for each time are tallied next to the name of the batsman who scored them. But runs accrued by no-ball or wide are tallied in a separate column labelled "extras", the point being no batsman gets credit for having scored them. A "bye" in cricket is just like a passed ball in baseball. The bowler bowls the ball, it goes right past the striker, doesn't hit the wicket, and the wicketkeeper fails to stop the ball and it goes way out into the field. If the two batsmen think they can get away with it, they will start running and score runs. These runs are tallied as "extras" although they are not "penalty" runs as in wides and no- balls. A "leg-bye" is the same as a bye, except the ball bounces off the batsman's body somewhere. You remember from before, if the ball hits the batsman's leg and the umpire feels it would have hit the wicket, the batsman is out lbw. But if the umpire doesn't think it would have hit the wicket, and the ball bounces out into the field, the batsmen can run. However, this is not allowed if the umpire thinks the striker stuck his body purposely in the ball's way. It has to be an accident. One last point on extras: if the bowler delivers a wide or a no-ball and the ball goes out into the field, the batsmen can also run. If they do, the runs scored are counted as extras. But if they run, they are not awarded the one penalty run that they get if they just stand there. Oh, here's something I should have mentioned earlier but I forgot. When a batsman is out in cricket, he is not *automatically* out. Even if he hits an easy pop fly which is caught, even if his wicket is blown to smithereens by the ball, the batsman is not out *yet*. Someone on the fielding team has to ask an umpire "is this guy out?" and the umpire will then call the guy out. The umpire WILL NOT call a player out unless he is asked (the cricket term is "appealed") by the fielding team. The actual phrase used to appeal to the umpire is "how's that?" which is such a standard phrase you may as well write it "howzat?" Since *all* outs must be preceded by the call howzat, one thing you will sometimes see is a wicketkeeper rather obnoxiously calling "how's that" to the umpire after virtually every delivery of the ball in which anything remotely questionable happens. The signal the umpire makes to signal a batsman out is holding up one finger. ONE DAY CRICKET One day cricket has been around about twenty-five or thirty years, I have been told. Apparently, ticket sales were declining in international test matches. People only wanted to attend on the last day, they weren't happy sitting at the cricket ground eight to ten hours and going home having no idea who was going to win the match. So they came up a one-day version of cricket, which, while decried by the purists, is nonetheless today a very popular form of the game. There are two major rule changes in one-day cricket, and several minor ones. Major change #1: each side is only up once. Major change #2: each of the two innings of the match has a set maximum number of overs. It's as if in baseball your team was told the pitcher was only going to pitch a maximum of 15 balls to your team, regardless of whether you'd had three out or not. In fact, one-day cricket is also commonly known as "limited-overs" cricket. Typically in an international match each side is given fifty overs. Another rule change, each bowler can only bowl some set maximum number of overs (typically ten). To understand this, recall that in cricket there is no substitution. You have to decide before the match who you're going to put it. Without this rule, in a one-day match you would be tempted to send in two bowlers and nine hot bats. But if no one person can bowl more than ten overs in a fifty-over innings, your team must have at least five who can bowl. This restores some balance to the game. There are also restrictions on the way you can place your fieldsmen in a one-day match, but that's beyond the scope of this description. I'm still leaving out descriptions of bowling and the major types of strokes. Should I try and do anything with these? I mean, without pictures, I don't know how anyone can really visualize what's going on. OK, review from parts 1&2, this is a cricket ground: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ----------- * * ----------- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The cricket ground is oval shaped with a rectangular area called the "pitch" in the middle. Here's a closer look at the pitch: --------------------------- B2| | || |B1|WK L E R | | O W --------------------------- B The "BOWLER" is running in from the left to deliver the ball to the batsman "B1." Behind B1 is "|" the wicket he's defending. Behind that is "WK" the wicketkeeper. On the other side of the pitch is "B2", the other batsman who's up. Below B2 is "|" the other wicket. The bowler bowls six balls to the batsman, and that's called an "over." In my last post I mentioned a bowler can't bowl two overs in a row, but I neglected to mention that you also cannot change bowlers in the middle of an over. Let me explain about player substitutions: except in a few limited circumstances involving injury to a player, there are no substitutions in cricket. The same eleven players bat and field for the entire match. Bowlers act as fieldsmen when they are not actually bowling. When a bowler is not good with a bat, you put him at the bottom of your batting order and hope for the best. When a player is a good bowler and also a good batsman he is called an "all- rounder". Let me explain about the captain: cricket teams don't have a head coach or manager as in major American sports. Instead, one of the players is the "captain," also commonly called the "skipper," and he does the things that a manager would do such as setting the batting order, placing the fieldsmen, etc. Having looked over my previous post, I think it's now time to mention some of the major strategy points of cricket. Cricket strategy is very intricate, but there are one or two Very Big Considerations that should be brought out early. The first Really Big Thing is this notion "you bat 'til you're out." Let me make a baseball analogy. Suppose you're a baseball player and you're a very good hitter, like Barry Bonds. You're so good your team expects you to get two hits per game. Suppose you're up in the first inning and you strike out. Guess what! In baseball, that's OK! You'll have approximately four other chances in the game to get your hits. Cricket is *very* different. Suppose you're a cricket player ("cricketer") and you're a very good batsman. You're so good your side expects you to score about 80 runs every time you're up. Now suppose you go up to bat for your team, and on the very first ball, your wicket is knocked over. Guess what! You don't get another chance! You're out! You're finished! You're done! That's it! Your teammates will have to get those 80 runs for you, because you're not coming back! True, your team will have a second innings, but they're expecting you to score 80 runs in those innings too. The point is the cricket batsman's head is on a chopping block with every ball. The most obvious manifestation of this situation is that you will see many batsmen batting conservatively when they first start batting, and progressively get more aggresive as they score runs. And it's why there can be a lot of tension in the air of a cricket match even when not much seems to be happening to the casual eye. The situation between bowler and batsman has many variables not in baseball. Let me start with the bowler. The bowler takes a running start. He can run from any direction, at any speed. The fact that he's running as he releases the ball not only adds to the speed of the ball, but also he can twist his whole body into the delivery and put a really wicked spin on the ball. You know how in baseball, the ball is replaced every time it's hit, or there's any suspicion that it is not perfectly round? Well in cricket they use the same ball for a very long time. The old rule was you used the same ball for the entire match, but that has been relaxed somewhat. Still the ball is only replaced about once a day or every other day, and as it gets lumpier, it flies and bounces more and more irregularly. And don't forget the bowler bowls the ball overhanded and it bounces off the ground. The ground in a cricket pitch should be smooth but of course ground isn't perfect, and combined with the spin the bowler puts on the ball and the fact that it's lumpy, it's an intriguing proposition for a batsman. There's a lot of different ways to place the fieldsmen in a round field. I can't describe it explicitly without pictures, but suffice it to say that there are definite positions for fieldsmen in cricket, and when you place your players, it's based on who's batting, who's bowling, what types of balls you will bowl in this over, and based on all that, and weather conditions etc., which way you think the ball is likely to go when the batsman hits it. Now the batsman also has more choices than the baseball batter. As in baseball, the batsman wants to hit the ball where nobody is standing. But because there are many different cricket strokes, both offensive and defensive, the bat has a flat blade, and there is no foul territory, there's just a lot more that a batsman can do. Now, suppose two batsmen are up (it's called a "partnership") and one is a lot better than the other? You want the better batsman to face as many balls as possible. Who receives the next ball depends on what over is it and whether you have hit an odd or even number of runs lately. So, if you're the better batsman and you're receiving the ball, you want to hit an even number of runs. Notice that if you get a boundary that's either 4 or 6 runs, both even numbers. If you're the weaker batsman you'll try to hit a single (which we recall is one run) so as to get the better player to face the bowler. On the last ball of an over, a good player may purposely try and hit a single so that he will continue to face the ball when the next over starts. I'm honestly not sure if it's useful at this point to enumerate some of the more common types of balls and strokes. I think I'll leave them out for now. But you should know the difference between the on and off sides. OFF SIDE (right handed batsman) --------------------------- | | -----------|-------------------------|B1|WK-------- | | --------------------------- ON SIDE (right handed batsman) Suppose the batsman B1 in the above picture is batting right- handed. The entire cricket ground is then divided by an imaginary line (the long dotted line in the middle of the drawing). The batsman's strong side is called the "on" side of the field. The other side is called the "off" side. These terms are used in naming field positions (mid-on vs. mid-off, for example) and in general commentary of what's going on in the match. Cricket terminology: you can win a cricket match by runs or by wickets. It happens like this. Suppose you are the second team to bat, and it's your second innings, therefore the last innings of the match. One of two things can happen: your run total surpasses that of the other team, in which case you win; or your tenth and last wicket is taken and you still have less runs than the other team, in which case you lose. Suppose team A has scored 550 runs in its two innings. Your team B is batting its second innings. Unfortunately, your last wicket is taken when you only have 530 runs. The expression is "team A won by 20 runs" which is worded the same as any baseball game (lot more runs, though). The other situation is different. Suppose you have 549 runs and your batsman hits a boundary 6 when you're only on your seventh wicket. The four runs added to your score give you 555 runs, and the match ends immediately. You win. But it is not common to say "you won by 5 runs." Instead, the correct expression is "team B beat team A by *three wickets*." I spend all this time explaining this point because it's an important example of cricket thinking: you had three more wickets with which to keep batting and scoring runs, but you didn't need them. Here's a box score from a recent one-day match between the West Indies and Pakistan that I got from cricinfo (thanks, guys). After the score I will give a translation. =========================================================== West Indies B.C. Lara c Latif b Mushtaq 14 D.L. Haynes c Mushtaq b Akram 6 P.V. Simmons b Rehman 81 K.L.T. Arthurton c Anwar b Mushtaq 63 R.B. Richardson c Malik b Mushtaq 7 C.L. Hooper c Mujtaba b Akram 18 J.C. Adams not out 18 R. Harper b Akram 2 A.C. Cummins stumped Latif b Qadir 10 K.C.G. Benjamin b Akram 4 C.A. Walsh not out 2 Extras: (b3, lb10, nb2, w20) 35 Total: (nine wickets - 50 overs) 260 Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-57, 3-189, 4-201, 5-204, 6-222, 7-234, 8-251, 9-256 Bowling: Akram 10-1-40-4, Rehman 10-1-59-1, Mushtaq 10-1-46-3, Qadir 10-0-43-1, Malik 7-0-35-0, Mujtaba 3-0-14-0 Pakistan Saeed Anwar c Lara b Hooper 131 Asif Mujtaba c Arthurton b Cummins 15 Inzamam-ul-Haq run out 20 Javed Miandad c Adams b Benjamin 20 Basit Ali run out 16 Salim Malik not out 34 Wasim Akram not out 5 Extras: (b1, lb9, w9, nb1) 20 Total: (five wickets - 49 overs) 261 Fall of wickets: 1-42, 2-86, 3-143, 4-186, 5-251 Did not bat: Rashid Latif, Mushtaq Ahmed, Abdul Qadir, Ata-ur-Rehman Bowling: Walsh 10-1-39-0, Benjamin 10-1-54-1, Cummins 10-0-69-1, Simmons 2-0-10-0, Harper 8-0-36-0, Hooper 9-0-43-1 Result: Pakistan won by five wickets Man of the match: Saeed Anwar Umpires: David Shepherd/John Holder (England) =========================================================== The first set of statistics for each time concerns its batting performance. The batsmen are listed in their batting order. The West Indies starts like this: > B.C. Lara > D.L. Haynes > P.V. Simmons > K.L.T. Arthurton etc. This means Lara and Haynes batted first. One of them got out and was replaced by Simmons. One of those two got out and was replaced by Arthurton, etc. For each batsman, is listed his name, how he got out, and how many runs he himself scored (like rbis). > B.C. Lara c Latif b Mushtaq 14 Lara scored 14 runs and hit a fly ball which was caught by Latif. The ball was bowled by Mushtaq. > P.V. Simmons b Rehman 81 Simmons scored 81 runs (helluva score) and was "bowled" by Rehman. This means the ball knocked over the wicket. > A.C. Cummins stumped Latif b Qadir 10 Cummins scored 10 runs. On a ball bowled by Qadir, he stepped into "unsafe territory" (the cricket term is "he was out of his ground") and while he was there, Latif the wicketkeeper knocked over his wicket with the ball. This is called being "out stumped." > Inzamam-ul-Haq run out 20 Either Inzaman-ul-Haq or his partner hit the ball, and while they were running back and forth, scoring runs, Inzaman-ul- Haq had his wicket knocked over by the ball before he "made his ground" (re-entered safe territory). Inzaman-ul-Haq scored 20 runs. > Salim Malik not out 34 Malik scored 34 runs and was not out. There's always at least one "not out" in every cricket innings. When an innings ends early because the match is over or the side declares or whatever, there are two not out. > Extras: (b3, lb20, nb2, w10) 35 West Indies scored 35 runs that were classified as "extras." 3 were byes, 10 were leg-byes, 2 were no-balls, and 20 were wides. > Total: (nine wickets - 50 overs) 260 West Indies scored 260 runs total. They only had nine wickets taken from them in this time. Since this was a limited- overs game, their innings ended after fifty overs even though they had one wicket left. > Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-57, 3-189, 4-201, 5-204, > 6-222, 7-234, 8-251, 9-256 In West Indies' innings, their first wicket was taken when they had scored 26 runs. Their second wicket was taken when they had 57 runs. Their third wicket was taken when they had 189 runs. Etc. > Bowling: Akram 10-1-40-4, Rehman 10-1-59-1, > Mushtaq 10-1-46-3, Qadir 10-0-43-1, > Malik 7-0-35-0, Mujtaba 3-0-14-0 This are the Pakistani bowlers' stats for the West Indian innings. Each bowler has four statistics, which are: # overs bowled - # maidens - # runs allowed - # wickets taken A "maiden" is an over in which the bowler does not allow any runs. So the first entry > Akram 10-1-40-4 means Akran bowled 10 overs, one of which was a maiden. He allowed forty runs and took four West Indian wickets. Note if you add up the first column for each bowler you get 50, the total number of overs bowled. If you add up the last column you get 9, the total number of wickets taken. If you add up the third column, you get 237! Whazzat? West Indies scored 260 You have to look in the extras category. While wides and no-balls are charged to a bowler, byes and leg-byes are not. So, the total number of runs allowed by the bowlers, plus the number of byes and leg-byes, is equal to the total score of the opposing side. The rest of the Pakistani score is the same as the West Indian one. Their total > Total: (five wickets - 49 overs) 261 > Result: Pakistan won by five wickets shows that Pakistan stopped batting in their 49th over when they surpassed West Indies' 260 runs. They won "by five wickets" because they had five wickets left when the match was over. Of course, in this limited-overs match, they only had part of one over left when the won the game, so it was a very close match. Contributed by Jeff Tucker (jeff@ix.netcom.com)



