Can someone explainify this to me? I know the basics, you know that you’re supposed to hit the balls and that a six is a good thing. But the rest of it, wooooosh, straight over my head.
Random fact; before the arrival of the GAA and the Land League campaign cricket was hugely popular in Ireland.
Um. You have a bowler, right? And you have a batter, right? And you have a wicket which looks like a pi sign with an extra leg, right? And there's another of them which is a few metres away. And there might be other players dotted around who are supposed to be catchers or something. I dunno. And the bowler throws the ball and the batter has to hit it so that he can run back and forth between the wickets and get points. Maybe three each time, I'm not sure. If the bowler throws the ball and hits the wicket and knocks it down, the batter is out. And the batter can't stand in front of the wicket otherwise he's LBW (leg before wicket) and that has some sort of consequence of some kind.
Clear? I gleaned it all from reading boys' books from the forties which tended to assume you already knew the rules so that's why I'm so confused!
Yeah, that's sorta the same as what I know :) But it is the commentary that is bewildering in the extreme: " Handsome from Flintoff, clubbing Langford-Smith over mid-off for four. He follows up with an absolute huckleberry of a flick to the wide long-on fence. Langford-Smith gets down well to a solid straight drive from Freddie to save another boundary."
I know boundary means you get an automatic 4, because I watched the highlights of the Pakistan game. But huckleberry? long-on? mid-off? What language is this?
Whereas scrum, spear tackle, advantage and kicking into touch make total sense?
Err, yeah. Totally.
Long on and Long off are fielding positions in the outfield – no idea what a huckleberry is…and I've been bought up on cricket my whole life!
I think you have got the basics down – basically when the batsman hits the ball, they have to run up the pitch. If they make it down the pitch, they get 1 run, if they get back again they get two etc. If the ball rolls to the boundary they get four runs regardless of how many runs they have run, and if the ball goes over the fence without bouncing then it is a six.
I heard that after the defeat to the Irish, the Pakistani cricket team have decided to give up the sport and try something else instead. They're taking up Bob-Sleighing. (Bob Slaying! Geddit! Boom Boom!)
I think "an absolute huckleberry" sounds like he was just saying it was an absolute beauty of a hit. Like a humdinger. Commentator bullcrap.
Interesting fact supposedly,
But before GAA arrived, as you mentioned cricket was very popular, but did you also know that the strongest cricket counties were Cork, Kilkenny and Tipp. Some of the strongest hurling counties now. Might be a coincidence!!
Barry
I only vaguely found out what the game was all about last year but still don't understand the terminology. But at least I can look at a score and know whether a team is doing well or not. I think….
So there is someone out there who knows the rules then Marg, I'm impressed :)
Alan, that's just not nice.
H, could be. But who knows with cricket.
So what you are saying Barry is that people who were good at cricket passed on their cricketing genes, only slightly mutated, to become good at hurling ;) Interesting theory.
weenie, I can't tell that much. I mean, obviously runs are good, but when I see the actual final score I still need to be told which team won.
I'm pretty sure the creators of cricket went out of their way to make the sport's jargon as obscure as they could. Every single phrase is akin to a Masonic handshake. The only way to get to grips with it is to endure a couple of hour's coverage with someone who's in the club.
Well, I know a grand total of 0 people who play cricket, so I guess I'm doomed to ignorance :) And although we lost the match I think the Irish team can be pretty proud of their achievements so far.
BTW, to the person who googled wondering about the cricket anthem, afaik it is the same as the rugby one Ireland's Call. If you ever make a return that is.
Cricket is Baseball played ALL WRONG!! ::ducks::
But isn't Baseball just rounders for Americans Sally?