Cricket

Welcome back! Today's sport is Cricket.

Cricket is a bat and ball team sport played on a spherical grass oval. There are two teams of 11 on both teams, with a fielding/bowling team and a batting team. The aim of the batting team is to score as many runs as possible and then defend their score, while the bowling/fielding team is to reduce the batting team from scoring as many runs in a certain amount of overs/time or take 10 wickets. The game originated from England but is also very popular in countries such as South Africa, Australia, Sri Lanka, India, West Indies, Pakistan, New Zealand and England.

Bowling

Here is a quick guide:

Batting

The bowling/fielding team must aim to restrict as many runs as they can from the batting team. There are 11 players on the field at a time, 9 outfielders, 1 bowler and 1 wicket keeper (the guy who stands behind the batter). The bowler must bowl 6 legal deliveries to the batter per over.

The batting team's aim is to score as many runs as possible in a certain time frame or overs. Each team has 11 batters and there is a limit of 10 wickets that can be taken from the fielding team before the batting team must cease their innings regardless of whether the overs have been completed or not. Runs can be scored in 3 different ways. Once the ball is hit by the batter, he/she may proceed to complete 1 run by running from one side of the pitch to the other. 4 runs are scored if the ball is hit all  the way to boundary rope and a 6 is achieved if the ball reaches over the boundary rope on a full.

Fielding

Cricket is perceived to be a very boring sport in the eye of the general viewer. Many individuals (whether they follow sport or not) find that cricket has way too much down time and is played for too long. This point of view however, is not completely irrational as the game can be played over 5 days and the game requires lots of patience with batters required to find loose balls to hit or else they will leave or block the ball. I believe that the sport can be interesting, especially the shortest format as there is more action and excitement.

(written by Nathan Lam)