Australian Cricket

(Last updated June 15. 2010)

Australians Michael Clarke, Adam Gilcrist and Matthew Hayden in Cricket Photo Montage

                   The bowler lets fly with a bouncer as defensive line of fieldsmen protect the rear of the pitch

The Cricket Oval and Pitch Explained

Infield and Outfield with Pitch in the Middle
Number of outfielders is limited to encourage long-ball hitting	Check out the quaint names of fielders, including “Silly Mid-on,” “straight fine leg” and “Deep square leg”

No, Cricket is Not a Sissy Game

Yes, I have to admit that I, too, always thought that real men would never play a ball sport in spotless white trousers and cable-knit  sleeveless sweaters, with spectators in the stands politely clapping and saying, “Well played. Capital, old chap!” Give me good old baseball, I thought, where players try to emulate the vicious base running of Detroit Tigers icon Ty Cobb as he broke up double plays with his razor-sharp spikes going high into a terrified second baseman’s midsection. Or a pitcher serving up some 100 mph fastball “chin music” to remind a hitter not to crowd the plate, and sometimes “beaning” him on the head just to shake his confidence as thousands of fans scream for blood.

       Occasionally I watched cricket during the years we lived in India and South Africa, but like a lot of people with a short attention span I  found it a bit tiresome to follow a test match for five very long days, and then see it end in a draw. How can you have teams running up scores of hundreds of runs over five days and not get a result? What’s wrong with this picture? So, when I felt the need to watch a ball-and-bat sport, I would tune into ESPN and watch my New York Yankees play one of their 165 games a year, all of which, by the way, end with a result.

But a couple of years ago I somehow got drawn into watching the biennial Ashes test cricket series between England and Australia and my attitudes changed. I think I may have been intrigued by the colorful legend of the Ashes, which is traced to a satirical obituary in London’s Sporting Times in 1882 after Australia had defeated England in the two countries’ ninth test series. The Sporting Times wrote that English cricket had died and had been cremated, with the ashes being taken to Australia.  A small urn later turned up, reputedly containing the ashes of cricket bails (the small wooden sticks that rest atop the wicket stumps) from the 1882 test series. The Ashes series that I watched was a ripper, as we say in Australia, with lots of high drama and sledging (trash talking) between the two sides and a rousing victory for the Australian team.

     Several things caught my attention in that series, some of which I could easily relate to baseball, which I deeply loved and avidly played as a boy: the battle of wills between bowler (pitcher in baseball terminology) and batsman and the mind-games employed by each; the geometry of the game, which dictates the innumerable variations in the placement of fielders and outfielders; the intricate strategy brought to bear by the captain, as he decides what defensive deployment to use or whether to use a fast-bowler or spin-bowler against any given striker (hitter) at the crease. As in baseball, running between the wickets without being “run out” (or thrown out, as it is called in baseball) is crucial, as is skillful fielding, except that in cricket all of the fielders except the wicketkeeper (catcher) play without gloves. Cricket, like baseball, is also a game of statistics and history. Every young Australian boy grows up memorizing the run averages of his cricket idols, from the iconic Don Bradman (the Babe Ruth of cricket) to today’s test cricket greats, Ricky Ponting or Adam Matthew Hayden.

    As for sissiness, give a thought to catching a smoking line drive or an erratic short-hop ground ball hit at you from a few meters distance with your bare hands. Or standing at the crease (batter’s box) as a fast-bowler throws a “bodyline” ball right into your gut at 120 kph. Since in cricket the ball is normally bounced in front of the batsman, its direction is even less predictable than in baseball—and, I reckon, potentially more dangerous.

The rules of cricket are so numerous and complicated that I won’t begin to explain them here (go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket for a simple explanation), but basically there are two types of cricket: test cricket, which usually goes on and on for five days, or “limited overs” cricket, which is usually played in one day or less and which restricts the number of “overs” that are played.  An “over”  is six throws by the bowler before he rotates with another bowler (who has been playing in the field). In a normal one-day cricket matche, each side at bat is allowed 50 overs (300 bowled balls that are not deemed to be unacceptably wide or otherwise draw a “no ball” call by the umpire). Two batsmen are in the game simultaneously, one at either end of the wicket and batting in turn depending where they end up after runs are scored. The batsmen (“strikers”) stay in the game until they are dismissed, and consequently they sometimes score more than 100 runs in a game. When 10 batsmen have been dismissed, that team then takes the field and the other team goes to bat in attempt to better its opponent’s score.

In addition to one-day cricket, there is the even faster 20/20 cricket, with a 20-overs limit to each side. These matches are increasingly popular these days, as they tend to feature a lot of long-ball hitting, not unlike a “home run derby” in baseball. All forms of limited overs matches are sometimes more exciting than test cricket because there is less defensive batting---those wimpy little hits that dribble to an infielder as the batsman seeks only to defend his wicket. Because a team knows it has only 50 overs to run up an insurmountable score, its batsmen tend to “go for the fences,” as we say in baseball. (A ball hit beyond the boundary on the full earns 6 points, while a ground ball that goes to the boundary unimpeded by an fielder is worth 4 points. Otherwise, runners pick up a point for each time they run the length of the pitch from one wicket to the other before stopping out of fear of being thrown out.) But even though limited overs cricket is faster and often more exciting, five-day test cricket has its own appeal: strategy plays a crucial role as team captains direct their batsmen between defensive and attacking tactics, and carefully decide when to “declare,” which is something teams at bat can do when they think they have accumulated so many runs that they are unlikely to be matched when the opposing team comes at bat. When a team declares, the other side comes to bat under a considerable amount of psychological pressure.

    Test cricket typically consists of three five-day series played in three major cities, such as Perth, Melbourne and Sydney for the recent Australia-South Africa test series. Each side typically has two day-long sets of “innings” at bat and a final innings often results in a no-result finish, thereby ending the five days in a draw. You’re probably asking yourself. What could be more boring than watching cricket for five days without getting a result? Well, you should have seen the final half dozen overs (36 “bowls,” or pitches in baseball terms) of the Australia-South Africa test. South Africa’s captain, Graeme Smith, came to bat with only about ten bowls left in the game. He had a broken left hand and a badly damaged right elbow and he valiantly tried to fend off an Australian win in what was a dead-rubber game (South Africa had won the first three matches in the series). He was bowled out at the last minute by Australian Peter Siddle, and although it didn’t mean a thing to the outcome of the test series, it was riveting stuff, I assure you.

      A batsman can be “dismissed,” or sent off the field, by one of several means: he can be bowled out if he allows the ball to strike the wicket stumps, thereby dislodging the bails that sit on the top of the stumps; he can nick the ball with the edge of his bat (as in a baseball “foul tip”) and have it caught in the air by one of the infielders arrayed around him; he can hit what in baseball is called a “fly ball” and have it caught by a fielder; he can be run out as a result of inadequate base running, or he can be called out (dismissed) if a bowled ball strikes his body (or pads) whilst traveling in a direct line that would, in the umpire’s judgment, strike the wicket had it not been impeded by the batsman’s body. That’s called Leg Before Wicket, or LBW, and when it happens the bowler and his mates all celebrate loudly and then turn to wait for the umpire to slowly and dramatically  raises his  arm and just as slowly extend his forefinger to signal a dismissal. No rudely jerked thumb and loudly growled  “Yer out!” as in baseball. Just the hint of a smile on the umpire’s face amidst all of the celebrating if there is to be no dismissal,  or the slowly raised finger if the batter is out. That’s cricket. It’s a bit more subtle than baseball in some ways.   

But not always more subtle. I watched the series matches played recently between Australia and India last year and was amazed at how ungentlemanly both sides had become, in contrast to my image of gentlemen’s cricket before moving here. One Indian player in particular, a superb spin-bowler named Harbajan Singh, seemed to get under the Australians’ skin.  After he allegedly called a mixed-race Aussie player a “monkey” Harbajan was branded an “obnoxious little weed” by Australian player Matthew Hayden and Indian cricket officials howled in protest. The Aussie fans soon got stuck into it, as did the thousands of Indians who attend games here, and, fueled by media coverage, the little spat soon reached international incident proportions.  Harbajan seemed unfazed, and he even repeated what looked like an impersonation of a monkey scratching himself as Aussies howled more abuse at him.  It was a pity that cricket had come to this, but I nonetheless enjoyed the many matches between these two excellent cricket teams. I also enjoyed watching some of the Indian team’s greats. One in particular, Sachin Tendulkar, “the Little Master,” is closing in on West Indian Brian Lara’s crown as cricket’s all-time greatest scorer. Tendulkar, always the gentleman, is a delight to watch as he seemingly effortlessly pounds the ball ten rows deep into the stands for yet another “century,” or 100 runs in a match. His quiet modesty and graciousness on and off the field only increased my admiration for him.

      Yes, I still hold a fondness for baseball because it was the sport of my youth, from sandlot baseball to the American Legion league as a teenager and later the school teams on which I played . But it’s amazing how one can adapt to the conditions of his environment. Call it “going troppo” if you want, but I’m into cricket now, and I’m not ashamed to say it. It’s a great game.

    Following are a few more images of the world of cricket:

English bowler demonstrating his appeal to the umpire to call a batsman out for Leg Before Wicket. The umpire often stares blankly back before slowly raising his arm and extending a finger to signal dismissal of the batsman.	The “Baggy Green,” the traditional cricket cap worn by players representing Australia. This baggy green happens to be one worn by the iconic Don Bradman, the Babe Ruth of Australian cricket. Every young Australian boy dreams of  wearing the baggy green and hitting a century to win the Ashes Cup for Australia against England.	Sir Donald Bradman, an all-time hero in Oz, is Australia’s equivalent of Babe Ruth. Generally acknowledged as the world’s greatest batsman of all time, “The Don” had a career test average of 99.94 during his 20 years of First Class cricket.  In a failed effort to curb his dominance in batting, English bowlers in the 1930s devised the controversial (and dangerous)  “bodyline” tactic of beanball bowling.
India’s Harbajan Singh shows umpire the ball	Australia has a large Indian community, and here some of them show their enthusiasm for their cricket team in a match against Australia. Cricket is the national pastime in India, as I discovered whilst living there from 1982-85.	The Melbourne Cricket Ground oval, which doubles as a venue for football and other sports.  The stadium was built for the 1956 Olympics and has since been expanded to hold 100,000 or more.
The Ashes trophy, for which England and Australia battle                                  ll                                        A cricket ball	A player is “bowled” as the bails fly off the stumps.  He normally would walk off the field immediately, although sometimes when the dismissal is not so patently obvious a batsman stands in the crease and stares at the umpire until he signals a decision. Cricket etiquette dictates that refusing to “walk” is, er, not cricket. But a lot of players these days refuse to walk in the hope the umpire might not have heard or seen everything.	Australia’s Matthew Hayden at the crease      At age 34, Sachin Tendulkar, the great Indian batsman known as “the Little Master,” is still a big power hitter and is always a crowd-pleaser.

My daughter Lisa, who also admits to being captivated by cricket, stumbled across this British tea towel on the Web and passed it along. We think it captures the absolute confusion that a cricket neophyte endures.

“Howzat!” is what cricketers yell at the umpire in appeal when they think they have bowled a batsman or otherwise dismissed him. The stony-faced umpire  will let the antics go on for a bit and then make his ruling.

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