How to play cricket
What is Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball team sport popular in England, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and over 100 other countries world wide. It has its origins in early 18th century England
The Aim of The Game
Cricket consist of a match between two opposing teams with 11 players per side.
The aim is for the batting team to score as many runs as they can without being dismissed. The other team needs to field and bowl thus aiming to dismiss the other teams batsmen and limit the runs being scored.
When the batting team has no available bats men or has used all their over, the teams switch and it is now the fielding teams turn to bat and try to out score the competition.
Team Composition
A cricket team is composed of 11 players. An effective team would comprise of 5 batsmen, 5 bowlers and 1 wicketkeeper. The captain decides on key decisions such as rotation of bowlers and the batting order.
Bowling
There are 3 types of bowler;
- Fast Bowler
- Medium Bowler
- Spinner
The fast bowler takes a long run up to build momentum and power. Some fast bowlers rely totally on speed to defeat the batsman, thrusting the ball at over 90 MPH. Others use a mixture of gulie, curves or spin to deceive the batsmen into mistiming the strike and thus resulting in the ball being “caught behind” by the wicketkeeper.
The medium bowler relies on accuracy and perseverence to limit the scoring rate and tire the batsman’s concentration.
The ‘spinner’ bowl at a slow pace relying on gulie to beat the batsman.
Dismissals
The fielding team can get the batsman out in several ways, by
1) catching him out. This is done when the batsman hits the ball with
his bat and a fielder catches the ball on the full (without bouncing).
2) bowling him out. This happens when the bowler bowls the ball and
the ball strikes the batsman’s stumps or bails.
3) leg before wicket, or LBW. This happens when the bowler bowls it
and the stumps being hit by the ball are prevented when the batsman’s
leg gets in the way. This rule is a bit complicated, and you can let
the ball hit you on the legs sometimes without being out leg before.
This rule is one where the umpires have to make some judgments and can
cause a few arguments!
4) stumped, when the batsman comes forward to hit the hit but steps
out of his crease, misses the ball and the fielder behind the stumps
collects the ball hits the stumps before the batsman gets back behind
his crease.
5) run out, when the batsman attempts to score a run but has his
stumps hit by the ball before he reaches the other crease.
6) Hit wicket, when the batsman hits his own stumps while trying to
hit the ball.
7) retired, when the batsman voluntarily decides to finish his innings,
Fielding
Fielding refers to the players position on the field.
The ‘Wicket-keeper’ operates behind the Wicket which is being guared by the batsman. His goal is to gather any balls missed by the batsman.
Another key position is the bowler (outlined above).
The other 9 positons are determined by the Captain and are not fixed. They include positions such as ‘long leg’, ‘slip’ and ‘third man’.
Batting
Batsmen play in a ‘batting order’ decided by the captain. The teams best batsmen are played in descending order such that the ‘openers’ have the best chance of scoring against the strongest bowlers.
The batsman’s goal is to stike the ball off the flat surface of the baldes surface. This ensures maximum power and direction. A weaker shot will result if the balls is struck with the side of the bat called an ‘edge’.
The batsman will not always aim to strike the ball as hard as possible as many simply ‘block’ the ball away from fielders to score the run.
The batsman can use different types of stokes which are named after the type of swing or direction of the shot; ‘hook’, ‘pull’, ‘drive’, ‘cut’.
The batsman can let the ball go through to the ‘Wicket keeper’ provided he is sure it won’t hit his wicket.
Runs
The batsmans primary objective is to prevent the ball hitting the wicket and secondary to score runs by striking the ball to give him and his partner time to run to the other end of the pitch before the fielding side can return the ball. For the run to count, both runners must touch the ground behind the crease with either their bats or their bodies.
It is the batsman who decides if a run is to be attempted as he has a superior view of the ball’s progress.
Running is a calculated risk as the fielder could break the wicket while the batsman is out of his ground. In this situation the batsman is ‘run out’.
Innings
Innings refers to the collective performance of the batting site. All 11 members of the batting side are meant to have their turn to bat but an ‘innings’ can end before they all get the chance. Ordinarily each team as one or two innings apiece.
The aim of the bowler and his fielders is to dismiss the batsman such that he needs to leave the field and be replaced by another batsman. When 10 batman on the team have been dismissed, then the whole team is dismissed and the innings is over.
Overs
The bowler bowls the ball in sets of six deliveries (or “balls”) and each set of six balls is called an over. This name came about because the umpire calls “Over!” when six balls have been bowled.
