Today Charlie and I went to a cricket match. This was the second time I have attended a cricket match that I attempted to keep up with what was going on. I still am basically lost and the more I learn about it the more lost I get. I guess I need to stop thinking about baseball and just learn cricket.
The match was held at the St. David Cricket Club. St. David is the parish closest to St. George near the North end of Bermuda. It is a really nice facility with a two story clubhouse and it is located right on the water with a beautiful ocean view.
The game today was one of four matches being held this weekend for the semi-finals in Bermuda. It was the local St. David team versus some newcomer team. The majority of the fans were rooting for St. David, of course.
Since I have already admitted I have limited to no knowledge of the game of cricket I shall commence to share my limited and possibly incorrect understanding of some aspects of the game. The basic setup is like this: One team (the “in” team) has two players on the field and they are both batters (batsmen). The two batters are facing each other across a pitching alley (the pitch) with the opposing bowler (like a pitcher) at one end of the pitch or the other at a time. The bowling team (the “out” team) has about 11 players on the field at a time - one bowler, one catcher and the rest in field positions. The catcher is the only one wearing gloves. The ball is kind of baseball-like.
The batters are trying to accomplish a few goals - the primary goal is to keep the bowler of the other team from knocking over the wicket (taking the wicket). The wicket is 3 sticks in the ground about 28” tall (stumps) with two small sticks (bails) balanced on top of the three stumps. So the batter stands in front of the wicket with his bat trying to hit balls that the bowler is throwing. If the bowler knocks over the wicket then that batter is out. If the ball is hit and a pop-fly is caught then the batter is out. There are a number of other things that can make a batter go out that I don’t understand yet.
One revelation I had today was the origins of the term "sticky wicket". I get it now...
When the batter hits the ball he can either run or not run, whatever he wants to do. I personally find this hard to understand but I’m working on it. If the batter does decide to run, his teammate batter at the other end of the bowling pitch must also run - they are each running to the other end of the pitch - they are exchanging positions. It is essential that there be some coordination between the two batters about when they are going to run. While they are running, the wickets are unguarded and can be knocked over by the fielding team. Each time the batters exchange positions that counts as a single run. If a good hit is made it is possible for the batters to get a number of runs on a single hit by running back and forth between the ends of the alley while the ball is being fielded. If it is a really good hit (similar to a home run in baseball) and the ball rolls over a rope or boundary marking on the ground that is a big oval around the field then four points are awarded. If the ball flies over the boundary of the field then six points are awarded. The radius of the field from the pitch to edge of the filed is about 400-500 feet.
I did not really catch on very well to the whole flow of the game. I have learned from several informed Bermudian sources that six successful pitches is known as an “over”. I think the key is “successful” here because it seemed to be a long time and many pitches between overs. I guess a pitch must be deemed hit-able to count. At an over, another bowler takes over, pitching from the other end to the other batter. The same two batters stayed on the field until they were put out, then a replacement was sent in.
The teams stayed in their respective positions for a long time. We watched for over three hours and the same team was still batting. I guess all of the batting team members have to be put out before the “in” team goes “out” and the “out” team comes “in”. There are apparently some other ways to cause an inning to be over that I did not understand. A match can take a long time. When the first inning was over today, everybody came inside to the clubhouse to eat lunch. I heard the game would probably last into the evening. Some matches go on for the whole weekend.
So anyway, I obviously have a lot to learn yet about the game of cricket but we sure had fun watching and learning about the game. I think some of the locals were quite entertained by my grasp of the game and I'm not sure they were as forthcoming as they could have been in telling me about the rules. One of the best summaries of the game I have found is a bit comical yet entirely accurate goes like this:
“You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.”