Cricket 101 – Indian Premier League 2020
Sports has the unique power of uniting people all over the world and sometimes, transcends national, racial and cultural boundaries. One such, is an old British sport, called Cricket. While some references date back to the 1600s in south-eastern England, the general consensus is that the sport was properly established in the 18th century.
In the 18th and 19th century, Cricket was taken by the British to their colonies in Asia, Africa, Australia, and even in North America. In fact, “British North America” is said to have established its first official cricket club in Haverford, Pennsylvania, in the 1830s with Philadelphia being the unofficial capital of Cricket in America. The first international match between the United States and Canada is said to have taken place in 1844, much before the first professional baseball leagues in the post-Civil-war era.
Currently, there are more than 100 countries that are members of the “International Cricket Council” and officially play the sport in some form or the other. There are cricket matches that have had a global viewership of a Billion people. Yes, a single match – with a Billion people watching the same match at the same time. While it’s extremely popular in various parts of the world, several people still find it very confusing. If you’re in the latter group, let me try to help you out!
Fig: A Cricket ground, with a cricket pitch in the middle. Source – Wikipedia
Cricket is played in various formats – a 5-day version called a ‘Test match’ (Yep, two teams play for five days, you read that right), a “One Day” version and a three-hour version, called a Twenty20, or T20 in short. The second and the third formats are also called “Limited Overs Cricket” (more on “Overs” in a bit). For the sake of simplicity, let’s just stick to the T20 version.
This sport is played by two teams of 11 players each; a batting team and a bowling/fielding team. Unlike baseball, there are only two innings – one for each team. The objective is that, at the end of the match, your team should have scored more runs than the other.
In the first innings, two players from the batting team ‘bat’ in the middle of an oval cricket field, on what’s called a cricket pitch, and try to score as many runs as they possibly can. The fielding team’s objective is to limit the batting team from scoring a lot and try to get them out as soon as possible.
There is a set of wickets/stumps on both sides of the pitch. A batter stand in front of one of these sets and a runner, stands by the other set on the other end of the pitch.
A bowler bowls (a ball or “a delivery”) at the batter, who tries to hit the ball and run to the otherend of the pitch and exchange the position with the runner. The runner is now the batter, and the batter is the runner. Each such exchange is ONE run.
Fig: A Cricket Pitch with wickets/stumps at either ends. Source – Fox Sports
While the batter and the runner are “running”, the fielder tries to gather the ball and hit the wickets before the run is complete. This is an ‘Out’ and a new batter/runner takes the field.
The batter can choose to not swing at the ball and let it go past the wickets, or swing and miss the ball. There are no strikes, there is no ‘Out’ as long as the ball doesn’t hit the wickets behind the batter. (You’re not allowed to block with your legs, so there are exceptions, but let’s not get into that right now). Here are some examples of bowlers from all over the world hitting the wicket during the Cricket World Cup last year.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/F0_aypvtW8Y
If the batter hits the ball along the field and beyond the boundary line, the batter and the batting team get 4 runs. If the ball crosses the boundary line without bouncing on the field (Like, a Home Run) they get 6 runs and the batter bats again. If the fielder catches the ball before it bounces on the field, the batter is “Caught Out”.
Check out some AMAZING catches here: https://youtu.be/CE_iOr_qb-E
Each bowler bowls (Like, pitches in Baseball) 6 times. This concludes an “Over” and a new bowler now bowls 6 deliveries and this goes on. In a T20 game, each team gets a maximum of 10 batters or 20 Overs (and 50 Overs in a One-Day game) whichever comes first, to score as many runs as possible. If 10 out of the 11 players in the batting team are out, their inning is completed, regardless of the numbers of overs remaining. And then, the fielding team bats and tries to outscore the batting team. The team at the end of the match that has the most number of runs, wins!
Here’s the last over from a match between India and Australia. Final Over – Last 6 balls. India needs 13 runs to win.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/QMLo4TxcdR0
Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy! Right? Lol. I know that simply reading the rules of the game won’t really help unless you play the game….or the next best thing, watch the game live! And guess what, you’re in luck. In 3 days, one of the most exciting cricket tournaments, called the Indian Premier League (IPL) is about start. Usually, the IPL is held in March/April but due to COVID-19, it got pushed this year to September 19 -November 10, 2020 and will be held in empty stadium. While no sport is complete without the fans at the ground, watching cricket being played would surely be a good way to learn more about it!
More on this to come! 😉
About the author: Sid Thatham was an international graduate student from India at the University of Cincinnati, where he worked towards a Master’s in Chemical Engineering and an MBA. He currently works as an Energy Engineer for the Department of Utilities at university’s Power Plant. He is an ardent cricket fan, and, in this blog, he shares some history and basic rules of the sport.
