Ron Knight
Above: Delivering and receiving the cricket ball. This picture was taken at the Capital Cricket Festival, an exhibition played with a hard tennis ball. As a result, the striker (Neel Challagali) does not need to wear protective equipment. The bowler (Anil Pandya) is in his follow-through after delivering the ball, while the umpire (Ron Knight) looks on. Two members of the Youth Cricket program are the non-striker and the close fieldsman. Note the ragged condition of this pitch, which is not normally used for cricket, and was reason the tennis ball was used. An inconsistent bounce off the pitch can be very dangerous for the striker with a traditional hard ball.
Cricket in the United States is often viewed as a foreign sport, but Washington’s soldiers played cricket to pass the time at Valley Forge. Accounts of Civil War POW camps tell of prisoners playing both cricket and a new sport, baseball. As baseball overtook cricket in popularity in the US, cricket survived until the 1920s, mostly in the Philadelphia region. But eventually it died out even there.
There were a few pockets of interest in the US where cricket continued, such as among the Hollywood crowd of British men like Boris Karloff and Alfred Hitchcock, but until a new influx of Commonwealth natives arrived in the 1980s and later, cricket was not generally played in the US. But locally you can find cricket nowadays in an organized and growing league in the Research Triangle. This article aims to explain what you will see if you go to a cricket match in the Triangle.
If you arrive at the grounds after it is set up for cricket but before players take the field you will see three wooden stakes (stumps) standing upright, 28in ut tall by 9in wide, with two small pieces of wood (bails) on top of them, forming a wicket. You also will see a second wicket 66ft away from the first.
These two wickets mark the ends of the cricket pitch, which is 66ft (a tenth of a furlong, or 1 chain) by 10ft. The pitch is cultivated to be as smooth and even as possible so that the cricket ball will bounce consistently.
The cricket ball is both smaller and heavier than a baseball, hence by definition more dense. It has a thicker leather cover and is quite painful if you get hit by it.
The origins of cricket are undocumented and lost in history, but cricket lore believes it was started by a couple of shepherds with nothing better to do, with one shepherd bowling a rock or ball underarm at another shepherd standing before a wicket in a fence with his shepherd’s crook, trying to knock the ball away with his crook before the bowler could get it through the wicket.
The origin of the name “cricket” is also obscure, but one theory supposes that the word is related to “crook”. The player delivering the ball to the batsman is still referred to as the bowler, even though nowadays the ball is generally delivered overarm. The agricultural beginning of cricket may explain the use of rural measurements.
If you are able to go out on the cricket field and examine the pitch, you will see white lines marked upon the pitch at each end. These lines are called creases. The bowling crease, which is the back edge of the painted line, is the line through the centers of the three stumps, marking the end of the pitch. 4ft in front of the bowling crease and the stumps is the popping crease, which is considered to be unlimited in length to the edge of the field, although it will be marked only in the region of the pitch.
Perpendicular to these creases are the return creases, which begin at the popping crease and go back past the bowling crease and are again considered to extend backwards to the edge of the field, although they are marked for only 8ft or more. The actual crease is the inside edge of the marking, and the two creases are parallel to each other and at a distance of 4ft4in from the center stump.
The popping crease marks the batsman’s safe ground: if he has any part of his body or his bat in hand grounded behind the popping crease, it is like being on base in baseball. If he is in front of the popping crease he is out of his ground, and can be run out if the ball is alive, like being caught between the bases in baseball.
Striker with protective equipment, who has just played the ball and is preparing to run. This batsman is wearing pads to protect his shins and gloves. He could also wear a helmet. These are the only visible protective gear allowed, but protection worn under the clothing is allowed, most especially a protective cup.
Each cricket team has 11 players, with substitutions very limited. When a substitute is allowed, he is not considered a player. Only players can bat or bowl or keep wicket or act as captain. However substitutes can act in the field for an injured player. The captain of each team has to name his 11 players before the cricket match starts.
Cricketers bat in pairs, with one batsman at each end of the pitch. One batsman faces the bowling and is called the striker, while the other batsman stands at the bowler’s end and is called the non-striker.
The bowler runs up to the end of the pitch opposite the striker and delivers the ball to the striker, who attempts to play it and score runs, or at least prevent the ball from knocking down his wicket, which would result in his being out, bowled.
The bowler uses a runup before delivering the ball because he is not allowed to throw the ball, he has to bowl it. The distinction is that in bowling the ball his elbow is not allowed to straighten, partially or fully, immediately before the ball is released. If the ball is thrown, this is a no-ball, an illegal delivery. There are several different ways to produce a no-ball, like a balk in baseball.
Cricket batsmen envy baseball batters because in cricket the ball normally bounces on the pitch before it reaches the batsman. Skillful bowlers can make the ball break off the pitch in different directions, and skillful batsmen have to be able to read the delivery before it reaches them. A cricket delivery that doesn’t bounce is called a full toss, which cricket batsmen consider easy to hit. Of course they don’t have a round bat.
Baseball batters envy cricket batsmen for two reasons: one is that there are no fair and foul portions of the field and no forced running; the other is that the striker doesn’t actually have to hit the ball to be able to score runs.
In baseball, the saying goes that “good pitching beats good batting.” In cricket the opposite is true: cricket bowling is a frustrating occupation most of the time, punctuated by occasional moments of triumph for the occasional dismissal as the batsmen patiently accumulate run after run. Batsmen in cricket bat until they are out or until they just quit batting.
In first-class cricket the batting record for one batsman for one innings is 501 runs–not out, which means that after crossing the 500 mark the batsman just quit and left the field without ever being out.
After the batsman has faced the ball, if it is promptly gathered by a fieldsman (fielder) and the batsmen have no chance to run, they don’t have to run. This applies whether the batsman hit the ball or not. If the batsman hits the ball where there are no fielders, or the ball eludes the fielders even without his playing it, he and his partner can choose to run and attempt to switch ends, as many times as possible.
Runs are scored whenever the ball is in play and the strikers can safely run past each other and attain the ground at the other end of the pitch. If the batsmen run an odd number of runs they have changed ends of the pitch and the non-striker becomes the striker and vice versa. If they run an even number of runs they end up at the same end as before.
If the ball is delivered too far away from the batsman for him to have a reasonable chance to score from it, it is called a wide, similar to a ball in baseball. There is a one-run penalty score for a wide or no-ball. If the striker plays the ball and runs result, he gets credit for the runs in his batting statistics. If the ball passes the batsman without touching him or his bat, runs can still result, but they are not credited to the batsman; these are scored as byes.
When the striker hits the ball over the boundary of the field, a fixed boundary allowance is added to his score automatically: the two batsmen do not have to physically make the runs. When the ball rolls over the boundary, 4 runs are scored, and when the ball flies over the boundary in the air, as in a baseball home run, 6 runs are scored.
Under certain conditions, if the ball strikes the person of the batsman, but not his bat, and runs result from the deflection, these are scored as leg-byes. There may also be penalty runs awarded under certain conditions of unfair play that lie beyond the scope of this primer.
When a bowler bowls 6 fair deliveries (wides and no-balls are not fair deliveries and do not count in the 6), the umpire calls “over” and all the players except the batsman move to the other side of the field. A different bowler begins bowling from the other end of the pitch, and the previous non-striker becomes the striker. In other words, the players change over. In the course of time, this 6-ball interval in the game became known as an over.
There are several ways a batsman can be put out. His wicket can be bowled down by the bowler. He can be caught out, as in baseball, except that in cricket all held foul tips (snicks) are out. The person behind the batsman, like the catcher in baseball, is called the wicket-keeper, or just keeper, in cricket. He of course would be the one to catch a snick, which is a difficult call for the umpire.
The umpire in cricket is not standing behind the keeper, but is at the other end of the pitch where the bowler delivers the ball, which makes the determination of snicks very difficult. There is another umpire standing beside the pitch, looking along the popping crease at the striker’s end. At the end of the over the umpires move so that the umpire beside the pitch stands behind the stumps at the new bowler’s end, and the umpire who was behind the stumps moves to stand looking down the popping crease at his end.
The umpires use signals to convey to the scorers what has happened on the field. Two umpires and two (preferably) scorers are the officials necessary for a cricket match, in addition to the 22 players.
Besides bowled and caught, there are other ways of dismissal. There is run out, when a batsman is caught between the two popping creases and his wicket is put down. There is also stumped, which is a special type of run-out with special restrictions, mainly that the breaking of the striker’s wicket has to be done by the keeper alone, with no help from another fieldsman. The most contentious method of dismissal is the one called LBW (leg before wicket). The dismissal is complicated and involves judgement by the umpire, but the essential point is that the striker should guard his wicket with his bat and not by kicking the ball away. There are several other ways of being put out, but these happen less often.
When a batsman is out, he can recognize that he is out and leave the field without being given out by an umpire. That is called “walking,” and is generally considered good sportsmanship. Some batsman insist on awaiting the umpire’s decision. The umpire never gives a batsman out unless the fielding side appeals to him, traditionally with the cry, “How’s that?” In other words all outs in cricket are appeal outs, like leaving a base too soon or missing a base in baseball.
When a batsman is out, his batting partner remains on the field where he was before the dismissal, and a new batsman comes in to replace the batsman who is out. Since there are 11 batsmen, a complete cricket innings ends when 10 batsmen have been put out; the final batsman has no partner and can’t bat by himself, so he is not out.
The captain of the batting side in traditional cricket also can decide that his side has scored enough runs and make a declaration that his side’s time at bat is over. The side’s time at bat, whether ended with 10 outs, or declared over, or ended by weather interruption, is called that side’s innings.
In traditional cricket, each side has two innings (the word is both singular and plural), usually taken alternately, and the side that scores the most runs wins the match. However, to win, the losing side must complete both their innings, which is one reason a captain may declare his own innings closed without being all out. He is gambling that he can get the other side all out before time runs out and before the other side surpasses the number of runs he has already accumulated.
Traditional 4-innings cricket is played at the international level, and because of the superior quality of play and the professionally maintained pitches, a match can last for several days before a result is reached. The time limit is usually 5 days in matches played between national teams.
In the Triangle, teams bat for 1 innings apiece, and each inning is limited to either 20 overs (T20) or 40 overs (Premier League, PL). Of course if a side loses all 10 wickets before they use up their overs, their innings is ended prematurely. In the TCL a 20-over match usually lasts 3-1/2 hours if all overs are used, and a 40-over match around 7 hours.
In traditional cricket, a tie and a draw are not the same thing: a draw occurs when the match is not completed within the time limit, regardless of the final scores; a tie occurs when the scores are even at the end of the match. In limited-over cricket, ties can occur, if there is no tie-breaker rule, but not draws.
The Laws of Cricket (called Laws because rules are made to be broken) are determined by the Marylebone Cricket Club of London, at Lord’s Cricket Ground; individual competitions can make alterations to suit their own conditions. The laws are available online at www.lords.org/mcc/laws-of-cricket/new-code-of-laws-october-2017/. If you are not familiar with cricket they are rather heavy reading, but if you want to try to learn more details after reading this overview, please feel free.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to Jana Challaperumal, TCL President, and Niraj Thacker, TCL Secretary, for substantial assistance with this report, with apologies to others not mentioned. Ron Knight is CSN’s cricket reporter.