I admit I had only a faint idea of what cricket was about when the World Cup in
For those who haven’t had the chance to watch much cricket, here are the basics: In the center of the cricket field is the dirt pitch, 66 feet long, with a wicket at each end. A wicket is 3 upright stumps (sticks) embedded perpendicular to the ground like |||. The batting team has a batsman at each wicket, and the other team has 10 fielders positioned around the field and 1 bowler. The bowler’s job is to bowl the ball from one end of the pitch to the other and try to hit the wicket.
The batmen have to defend their wicket, using their bats to strike the ball a bit like the batter in baseball. To score runs, the batsmen must run between the wickets, each time they run to the other wicket they score 1 run. Or they can hit the ball so hard that is goes beyond the field’s boundaries, with 4 runs for the ball rolling over the boundary and 6 runs for the ball going over through the air. The batsmen can get out when the bowler hits their wicket, a fielder catches a pop-fly, or a fielder runs them out by hitting a wicket before he reaches the wicket.
In the Twenty20 format, each side bats for 20 overs, with an over equal to 6 balls. The batting team must score as many runs as they can in the 20 overs, or until 10 wickets are taken. Since each side consists of 11 players, and each wicket must have a player, if 10 wickets are taken, the batting side has only one batter remaining, so it cannot continue batting. After the batting team posts a score from their overs, it’s the other teams turn to bat and try to chase down that score. If they can score more runs in their 20 overs, then they win the match.
Hopefully that’s enough rules to understand the basics of the game, or I just confused you further.
Like any good rivalry, India-Pakistan matches are always intense battles with more than just cricket victory at stake.
By the last over,
It took me a while to get into it, but this World Cup has made me into a cricket fan, though I’m going to miss watching it once I go back to the States. Maybe I can convince Dad to get satellite TV… :-D .