[pdpi]

It’s surprisingly simple, actually.

A cricket pitch is a long strip. Bowler bowls from one end, batter strikes the bowl from the other. Scoring is done by running from one end of that strip to the other (the unit of scoring is literally called a run). Six legal bowls make an over.

There are two batters in play at each point in time, one at each end of the pitch, and they both must run towards the other end of the pitch (therefore swapping places) to score.

Bruce Edgar had scored 102 runs, was not out (in the same sense as baseball — meaning he was still in play), but, because they either didn’t manage to score any runs, or scored twos, he spent the whole over on the non-striking side of the pitch.

[adastra22]

It’s surprisingly simple, actually.

Basically, there's three grabbers, three taggers, five twig runners, and a player at Whackbat. Center tagger lights a pine cone and chucks it over the basket and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox. Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

That sounds like Calvinball

[microgpt]

So does cricket

[codelikeawolf]

Oh my god as soon as I started reading the parent comment I immediately thought of Whackbat! This made my day.

[shawn_w]

What do the grabbers do?

[foobar1962]

So who's on first?

[chrbr]

Got it.

[kstenerud]

It's surprisingly simple, actually.

The bariet takes a pull at the fumbler, and then one of two things happens: Either he misses, or hits it (towards the flange or along the foul line to the base). There are three spichies who can try to deflect the fumbler, either towards the simulcum or out to the field.

The simulcum is the more audacious play, giving an instant spiel if they succeed in darving the bariet. But it runs a serious risk of a spurn, so unless a spichie is particularly strong, the field is the safer play.

[microgpt]

It's surprisingly simple, actually.

The foo walks into the bar and he qax. The bartender says, what can I do you for? The foo says, breed me daddy. The network bleeps that part out. The foo says, I'll have a beer of pint. The tomato exists. Existence is suffering. Existence is despair.

[microgpt]

I swear I planned to finish this but I was falling asleep and must've hit send by mistake. Can't edit or delete now.

[senthil_rajasek]

Explaining Cricket to a Baseball fan only makes it worse.

I have tried it many times and failed.

Personally, playing a few games of cricket is the best way to learn the rules of the game.

As an example, in your explanation ( which is good to this lifelong cricket fan from India) your first sentence starts "A cricket pitch..." And when a baseball fan reads it he is probably asking "What is a cricket pitch?"

[dismalaf]

Nah, cricket is pretty analogous to baseball.

Instead of 9 innings there's one inning, at least in ODI or T20 formats (best to watch anyway).

Instead of 3 outs there's 10 outs (called wickets).

An out is having a ball caught after you hit it (same as baseball) or the ball hitting the wickets when at bat (kind of like strikeout) or a fielder knocking the wicket off with the ball before you reach the line, which is basically the same as being thrown out in baseball.

Scoring is similar, you score runs when you run the bases. When it gets hit out, it's basically the same as a homerun except if it goes out after bouncing it's only 4 points, straight out is 6.

If anything it's easier to understand than baseball. No strike/ball count, it's basically you hit it, miss it, or are bowled out. Running is easier to understand too, anytime you reach the other side it's a point.

Most of the complication is during test matches because of tactics/tradition. The basic rules are a lot like baseball.

Also, to get anyone into cricket, just show them a T20 match. More action than baseball.

[topgrain2]

> Instead of 3 outs there's 10 outs (called wickets).

> An out is having a ball caught after you hit it (same as baseball) or the ball hitting the wickets when at bat (kind of like strikeout)

I thought a wicket is what you call an out? Now it’s something else, too?

(This kind of thing is why being a baseball fan having cricket explained at you by a Brit feels exactly the same as listening to people play mornington crescent)

[bruce511]

Yes. Actually "wicket" is used for 3 different things.

Behind the batter, between the batter and the catcher are 3 vertical sticks. This is called the wicket. The batter is protecting those sticks, the bowler is trying to hit them.

If the bowler succeeds he has "got a wicket" and the batter has "lost his wicket." These 2 terms are used though regardless of the actual manner of the out.

To make things more confusing, the strip of land between the bowler and the batter is also called "the wicket". (Its slso called the "pitch", but I digress.) And this is a really important part of the game..

In baseball the ball is thrown at the batter, but in the air, not touching the ground (ie not bouncing.)

In cricket the ball may bounce before it gets to the batter. Indeed it almost always does. (A ball that doesn't bounce is usually easier to dispatch.)

Since the ball bounces, what it bounces off becomes really important. The hardness, amount of grass, smoothness, cracks and so on all become elements of the game, and all are different at each game.

The "art" of cricket is the way the bowler can manipulate the ball to not just move through the air (like in baseball) but also move off the pitch (aka the wicket). This movement is the key. Without it the game is dull - it becomes too easy for the batter.

If the pitch moves the ball too easily, it can become too hard for the batter, and the game can end up being too short (and dull in a different way.)

A "good" pitch thus balances the skills of the bowler with the skills of the batter. Creating a good pitch is art, not science though.

[Smoosh]

Also, the three sticks are called the stumps and are topped with two unattached cross-beams which are called the bails. Hitting the wicket (stumps) does not count unless one or both of the bails are dislodged.

[topgrain2]

So you bowl the ball against the wicket so the batter can try to hit your bowl? And then if the ball you bowled hit another thing that is also a wicket, you got a wicket?

Not confusing at all. :-)

[senthil_rajasek]

There is more... The batter can swing, miss the ball completely and hit the wicket! Then it's a "hit wicket" and the batter is out.

You still with me ;-)

[pdpi]

> I thought a wicket is what you call an out? Now it’s something else, too?

It's a metonym.

The actual wicket is the wooden things the bowler is trying to hit. Because hitting the wicket eliminates the batter, the word is also used colloquially to refer to an out.

[teruakohatu]

A wicket is a physical wooden structure. To take a wicket means to physically hit the wicket with a ball causing the batter to be out.

A wicket has the same function as a catcher in baseball.

[dismalaf]

The wickets are the physical sticks behind the batter. Someone is out when you "take their wicket". But yes, the player is then out of that inning.

The jargon is annoying but it's a lot like baseball.

[gesis]

> Nah, cricket is pretty analogous to baseball.

goes on to use the same term for multiple game actions/objects.

Nah. I ain't buying it.

Signed,

A follower of neither.

[aidenn0]

If outs are like in baseball, how can there be a "last ball" known before it is bowled -- in baseball balls are delivered until the final out is made.

[dismalaf]

True, forgot that difference. In cricket innings are a fixed amount of balls thrown (and fixed intervals for the bowler to be changed aka. overs).

[pseudohadamard]

What's the baseball equivalent to silly mid-off?

[dismalaf]

Infield shift? Although they recently made rules against it...

[QuantumGood]

As a technical writer (off and on, for the U.N. at one point) since the late 1980's, I've learned that much good technical writing must start with some form of "It’s surprisingly simple, actually," or you're choosing to lose some readers right away.

[Agentlien]

Unlike the rules for Quidditch I had to reread parts of this to understand it.

[Eisenstein]

So the batter runs towards the bowler? 102 runs? Can a run score more than one? What was the down by 6 thing? It's not really that simple?

[Scarblac]

There's a rope around the field, if the ball goes over it without hitting the ground (like a home run) it counts for 6. If if it did hit the ground it counts for 4.

They can run more than one (get to the other side, turn around, run back, etc) but the chance of the wicket you're running to being hit with the ball (so you're out) becomes larger so they usually manage 1, sometimes 2 or even 3. And both batters have to run the same amount.

If the number of runs is even, they end up on the same side as they started from.

[zimpenfish]

> There's a rope around the field, if the ball goes over it without hitting the ground (like a home run) it counts for 6.

On the larger grounds, it tends to be a decently-sized foam triangular prism (covered in advertising, obvs.) rather than a plain rope which leads to "if it hits the triangle" rather than "goes over the rope" (I believe "hits the rope" also counts but is much harder to judge for obvious scale reasons.)

Also, IIRC, the ball can go over the boundary without hitting the ground but a fielder can knock it back inside for a catch to be performed to get the player out[0].

Sorry, I'm just making this more complicated for the baseballers, aren't I?

[0] If they comply with the changes around that last year - https://www.cricinfo.com/story/mcc-changes-rule-to-make-boun...

[pdpi]

Down by six is literally that — they were six runs (points) behind. Six is a "magic" number, because that's what you score for knocking the ball out of the park (so the cricket equivalent to hitting a home run).

Yup, batter runs towards the bowler (and the "inactive" batter runs the opposite direction).

In baseball terms, a cricket run is more or less equivalent to running a single base (the bowler is 22 yards away from the batter, which is more than the distance from the pitcher's mound to the home plate, but less than the distance from home to first base). Just like you can run multiple bases in baseball, you can do multiple runs in cricket. From a scoring point of view, you're effectively scoring how many bases you ran, so a baseball run is roughly equivalent to four cricket runs.

Scoring 100+ runs is called "a century", and it's pretty impressive, but, because you keep batting until the bowling team sends you out, you can just keep scoring all day long if you have the endurance for it. Baseball doesn't have a mechanism for a single batter to hit multiple back-to-back home runs.

[pseudohadamard]

If you want to hear the actual commentary from the event by cricketing legend Richie Benaud, you can find it online here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFVQpmw7Hnw