Introducing....... Cricket!

[tanglewood]

As a middle class Englishman, I am typically a fan of cricket, and a huge one at that. It is perhaps my favourite sport, with only football (soccer) comparable for me. However, it is wonderfully alien to much of the world outside 'The Empire' and this therefore will be not only a recount of my (hopefully) fabulous success, but also a transatlantic invitation to delve into the delights that the most gentlemanly of games holds. Hold onto your seats fellas, it's going to be wild ride....

The game being used is International Cricket Captain 2005 (ICC05), the fifth and latest iteration of the series I believe, of which I own three. It is far from perfect, but is still a pretty decent sim all round and any faults within the game can no doubt be circumnavigated by my skillful narrative.

Firstly, a general background on the game of cricket, of which more will be explained later. The easiest way is to draw comparisons with a game that the vast majority of you know well and is at least superficially similiar, baseball.

In cricket, as baseball, one team bats attempting to score runs whilst the other fields against them, attempting to restrict runs whilst scoring outs, thus ending the batting team's inning and swapping the teams. The winner is, generally, the team with the most runs at the end. In baseball, there are nine innings each composed of three outs, but in first-class cricket there are two innings for each team, each comprised of ten outs or 'wickets'. This is because in cricket every player is expected to bat in an innings, but there must always be two players 'in' at a time. As soon as the tenth out is reached, the final player at the crease has no partner, so the innings ends (the final player is declared 'not out').

The general state of play is somewhat similar as to that of baseball. The Batsmen stands at one end of the 'pitch', a 66ftx10ft strip in the centre of the playing field, and awaits the 'bowler' (analogus to the pitcher) to deliver the ball towards him. The batsmen then uses his bat to strike the ball, attempting to find a space away from the fielders to allow time to 'run'. A run is scored by the two batsmen (remember, there are always two batsmen at a time) crossing by running past each other along the pitch for one run. If they then turn and complete another crossing they score a second run and so on. Once the batsmen cease running as they believe they cannot score anymore without danger of being 'run out' (more later) the bowler prepares to bowl the next delivery. If the batsman strikes the ball and it crosses the outer boundary rope before a fielder can reach it he automatically scores four runs and if he does so without the ball hitting the ground before hand he scores six; these are called 'boundaries'.

So if that is how the batsmen score runs, then how do the fielding side take wickets? there are a variety of ways:

1. Caught - Exactly similar to a fly out, a batsman strikes a ball in the air which a fielder catches before it hits the ground.

2. Bowled - The batsman must protect a set of three sticks called 'stumps' at the end of the pitch. If the bowler bowls a delivery that strikes the stumps he is automatically out. Therefore, protecting the stumps is the batsmans primary concern.

3. Hit Wicket - If the batsman strikes his stumps with his bat, or kicks his wicket, or dislodges it in any way whilst attempting to play a delivery, he is out.

4. Leg Before Wicket (LBW) - The batsman cannot deliberatley use his body to protect his stumps. If the ball strikes the batsman on his legs and the umprie adjudges that it would have struck the stumps had he not got in the way, he is given out. There are a few complicated caveats to this basic LBW law which are not essential to know, even for some umpires it seems at times...

5. Stumped - If the batsmen advances out of his 'ground' (safezone about 2 yards long down the pitch) and the 'wicketkeeper' (catcher) collects the ball and strikes the stumps, the batsmen is out.

6. Run Out - If the batsmen are attempting to make a run, but the fielding side 'throw down the stumps' (hit the stumps by throwing the ball at them) whilst the batsmen at that end has not yet made his ground, he is out. This is why batsmen have to be careful in deciding when to run.

Unlike in baseball, the ball is must hit the ground on its way towards the batsmen, both for rules and strategy. Ruleswise, a delivery 'on the full' over waist height is an illegal ball, adjudged 'no-ball' and means a penalty run awarded to the batting side. Also, a ball that does not bounce is generally much easier for a batsmen to hit. Bowlers manipulate various spins on the ball whilst delivering it, attempting to induce odd changes in speed and direction when it strikes the ground. A ball that 'seams' is one that stikes the ground flush on the seam of the ball, thus coming off at a slightly changed angle. A ball that 'spins' is one that grips on the surface and rips across one direction depending on the spin imparted. Finally, a ball that 'swings' changes direction midflight based on areodynamics akin to a curveball or slider. Changes in velocity are generally not as prevelant as in baseball, although occasionally a bowler will use a slower delivery in an attempt to keep the batsman off guard.

The key difference between baseball and cricket is the equipment. In baseball, the bat is thin and round whilst every member of the fielding side has gloves. This makes scoring runs difficult whilst making outs relatively easy. In cricket the bat is wide and flat, whilst the fielders are all barehanded (barring the wicketkeeper) and expected to cover 360 degrees of the field. Therefore, scoring runs is comparatively easy to taking wickets. Following on from the differing emphasis, in baseball a good hitter who is a poor fielder will often be left out, but in cricket excellent fielding skills do not make up for a deficiency in batting.

A second key difference is that in cricket each innings is made up of many 'overs', a set of six legal deliveries bowled by one bowler. One bowler will bowl six balls from one end of the pitch, followed by another bowler bowling six from the other end of the pitch. Bowlers are not allowed to bowl consecutive overs. This also means that whilst in a baseball team there is one pitcher and everyone else are only batsmen and fielders, in cricket a side of 11 is usually made up of 6 specialist batsmen, 1 wicketkeeper and 4 bowlers. The specialist batsmen bat in the top order trying to score as many runs as possible and are usually good fielders also, the wicketkeeper is the best fielder in the side and usually a handy batsman also whilst the bowlers specialise in bowling, but must also field and bat, even though they are often not that good at either, as in cricket there are no substitutions (If someone is injured they are replaced by a sub who is not allowed to bat or bowl, only taking the injured player's place in the field). Some players termed 'allrounders' are good at both batting and bowling, making them valuable players to have as they can help balance the side to add more runs or bowling firepower as need be. However, an allrounder is usually a jack-of-all-trades, not quite as good as a specialist at either, unless they are a truly world-class performer such as the ledgendary greats Gary Sobers, Ian Botham, Imran Khan and select others including the contemporary Andrew Flintoff.

I think that's enough for now. Feel more than welcome to ask any questions as we go along. Onto the game!

[Young Drachma]

This is really cool. After all, ESPN did a horrible job of trying to explain cricket to us via Harold Reynolds.

[tanglewood]

English cricket is set up according to counties, which are somewhat equivilent to US states, only nowhere near as autonomous. There are 18 counties who play cricket at 'first-class' level, and the rest play minor counties cricket. The county which I have taken charge of is Leicestershire (pronounced 'lestershure'), a poor side with no real pedigree of sorts. Perfect for a ressurection job....

There are two predominant types of cricket played around the world, limited overs (one-day) cricket and four-day (first-class) cricket. OD cricket is limited to one innings per side in which there are a maximum number of overs allowed, in the English 'National League' it is 45 overs. The team with the most runs in their 45 overs wins. In FC cricket, each side has two innings to bat until either they are all out or they choose to end their innings for strategic reasons (to 'declare'). FC cricket lasts for four days and draws are fairly commonplace as all four innings must have been fully completed in order for a side to win. This makes balancing going for more runs to assure victory with declaring to allow extra time with which to bowl out the opposition a key factor in many games. OD games at international level are called simply One Day Internationals (ODIs) and FC games are extended to five days and called 'Test Matches' or simply tests. The longer form of the game is held up as the ultimate examination of a player's ability, especially test matches, but OD contests have gainined a lot of prestiege over the last 20 years or so, even if they will never been seen as equal to 'proper cricket' as the purists call it, somewhat tounge in cheek.

In England, each format is split into two divisions of 9 counties (Scotland are invited to play in division two of the OD game, making 10), with three promotion/relegation spots in each division. Each team playsevery other side in the division twice, once at home and once away, similar to football leagues. A county can be in division one in one format and division two in the other. The 'County Championship' is the FC format and the 'National League' the OD format. Leicestershire are marooned in the lower division of each format. There is also the Challenge Trophy, an FA Cup of sorts, which is a knock out 50-over tounrament including all the minor counties as well as the major ones, with Ireland, Scotland and Wales being invited for good measure.

So now, to meet the squad....

[Young Drachma]

I tried to get into it for the first time when I was overseas back in '01 in Kuwait. It was pretty entertaining.

I guess the question becomes, when does the game end? What is the difference between a 1-day test match versus long ones and how do they decide the length of a match?

What are the statistics like for individual players?

[Young Drachma]

My questions were as you posted. My bad.

[tanglewood]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I tried to get into it for the first time when I was overseas back in '01 in Kuwait. It was pretty entertaining.

I guess the question becomes, when does the game end? What is the difference between a 1-day test match versus long ones and how do they decide the length of a match?

What are the statistics like for individual players?

Statistics are very important in cricket, as they are in baseball, althugh there are not quite so many different types.

At the most basic level a batsman is judged by how many runs he scores, a bowler by how many wickets he takes. By these raw numbers are of course not very useful on their own.

A batsman's main statistic is his 'batting average', which is simply the number of runs he's made in his career/season divided by the number of times out in his career/season. An acceptable average is around 35, anything above 40 is good and nearing 50 excellent. A few players in the world average above 50 not only in domestic first-class cricket, but also at Test level and are therefore truly brilliant players, such as Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Jaques Kallis, Rahul Dravid etc. Don Bradman, the Babe Ruth of cricket, averaged a truly astonishing 99.97 at Test level, a full 35+ runs better than anyone else in history. The other main way of measuring a batsmen is how attacking he is. This is done by taking his runs against how many balls he has faced and extrapolating it to an average number of runs per 100 balls faced, getting a 'strike rate'. Around 40-45 per hundered is usual with 55 or so quick and 65 + very quick. In the limited overs format, averages are usually 5 or so runs lower simply as there is not so long to bat, and strike rates much higher with anything below 60 being slow and players often scoring at more than a run a ball i.e. 100+.

Bowlers have three main ways to measure their performace. The 'bowling average' is the most useful and important, simply runs conceded divided by wickets taken. Anything below 30 is good and the nearer it is to 20 the better. The legendary Glenn McGrath, the most Test wickets of any fast bowler and still active at 35 years old, averages a truly excellent 21.19 at Test level. The other measures are 'economy rate' which is runs divided by overs bowled, a very important statistic for OD cricket but less so for FC, anything below 4.5 is good here. Also there is strike rate, which is number of balls bowled divided by number of wickets, essentially showing how often a bowler takes a wicket, with a mark of 50 or so being very good.

These stastistics can show different player types fairly effectively. For example, a pinch hitter who opens the innings aggresively in a one-day game may only average around 25, but have a strike rate of 110 or 120. A grafting number 5 in FC cricket could average 45, but at a strike rate of 30 or so. A quick strike bowler whos job is to attack could average 35 and have an economy of 4.9, but a strike rate of 43.

Edit:

Also, there are special milestones in cricket which are unique to the game. Every time a batsman reaches 50 runs in an innings, a fine score, he take applause from the crowd a opposition, raising his bat in muted appreciation etc. Whenever a batsman reaches 100 runs, the crowd gives a standing ovation and the player removes his helmet and salutes the crowd and his teammates much more joyusly. A 'century' is a major feat, especially in Test cricket. This means that every half-century and century is recorded in a players career also, alongside averages and total runs etc.

Somewhat similarly, it is recorded whenver a bowler takes 5 wickets in an innings, or 10 wickets across the whole match (both innings combined). The ovations reseved for bowlers are usually less boisterous even if equally well intended, showing how the modern game is slanted towards the batsmen.

[tanglewood]

Leicestershire CCC

We play our home matches at Grace Road, Leicester, and last won a trophy in 1996, the County Championship. Last year we finished 6th in CC D2 and 7th in NL D2.

Batsmen

Darren Maddy, 30 RHB, RM
Batting: FC 33.13; OD 29.40; Test 11.50; ODI 18.33
Bowling: FC 30.89; OD 28.22

The county captain from last year I have no plans to shift him out of that role just yet (in cricket the captain is basically in charge in the field, the coaches are allowed no communication with the players once play starts). An alright batsman who bowls a bit of useful medium pace, but not as much as he used to, he flirted with England early in his career but 3 Test caps and 8 ODIs in which he failed miserably put paid to that. Seems solid, he will open the batting this year, from there on we'll see.

Matthew Boyce, 17 LHB

Fresh faced kid yet to make his professional debut. His average of 33 in the Second XI is decent for his age. His progress will be monitored keenly.

Aftab Habib, 33 RHB
Batting: FC 42.52; OD 26.62; Test 8.67

Excellent bat who was dealt with fairly harshly by the Enlgand selectors 6 years ago, dropped without getting a run in the team, but their loss is our gain I suppose. His perculiar failure in limited overs is of some concern.

John Maunders, 24 LHB
Batting: FC 28.43; OD 13.75

Fairly young guy who has done okay-ish in his career to date. Will get his chance at some point during the season to impress, otherwise he's gone.

Darren Robinson, 32 RHB
Batting: FC 32.30; OD 26.27

Another solid if unspectacular vet, had a good year last season so lets hope he's in the midst of a rennaisance as opposed to the start of decline. Will open with Maddy, at least for the early season.

John Sadler, 23 LHB
Batting: FC 24.61; OD 21.21

Another guy who can't rely on his youth as an excuse forever, he needs to start producing soon. Won't start off in the team, but if he gets his chance he will need to take it.

Hylton Ackerman, 32 RHB
Batting: FC 42.35; OD 32.51; Test 20.12

South African strokeplayer, whose EU passport helps him circumvent the maximum 2 overseas player rule, he has a touch of class about him. He'll anchor our batting with Habib.

Dinesh Mongia, 28 RHB, SLA
Batting: FC 53.29; OD 34.34; ODI 27.28
Bowling: FC 34.68; OD 28.62

Indian with plenty of international experience, his poor average in ODIs is partly due to his role in the team as a smasher down the order. His spin bowling is also pretty decent, but not to be relied upon too heavily. He'll bat at three and hit many centuries. Hopefully.

Wicketkeepers

Paul Nixon, 34 LHB
Batting: FC 31.42; OD 23.79

A good glovesman with over 1000 catches to his name and a pretty good batsman also. He's getting on a bit, but still a good player and will hopefully neither start to decline or retire.

Thomas New, 20 LHB
Batting: FC 23.50; OD 4.50

Very little experience considering Nixon's monopolisation for the last few seasons, but he's already hit a first-class fifty. A very agressive batsman, he'll get a few games in the one-dayers when Nixon needs a rest.

All-Rounders

Johnathan Dakin, 32 LHB, RM
Batting: FC 27.97; OD 19.94
Bowling: FC 34.39; OD 28.54

Another of the type we seem to have collected many of, solid thirty-something county pros who always have been and always will be mediocre. Will do a job if needed, but ultimatley isn't the type who'll get us promoted or winning things.

Ottis Gibson, 36 RHB, RF
Batting: FC 23.55; OD 21.58; Test 23.25; ODI 14.10
Bowling: FC 27.87; OD 24.72; Test 91.67; ODI 18.26

Former West Indian now operating on a Dutch passport, the only genuinely fast bowler at the club. A useful slogger down the order too for good measure, his age may restrict his appearances.

Jeremy Snape, 31 RHB, OS
Batting: FC 28.70; OD 23.60; ODI 29.50
Bowling: FC 49.18; OD 29.40; ODI 31.00

Not terribley outlandish with the bat but hangs in there for runs, his bowling is good for restricting scoring but lacks penetration. If a wicket looks like being a turner he'll get in, otherwise won't feature much.

Bowlers

David Brignull, 23 RHB, RMF
Batting: FC 14.50; OD 7.75
Bowling: FC 39.56; OD 28.80

Very expensive in the limited overs, but has taken a few wickets. May get games purely because of his youth considering what a load of old fogies this team seems to be.

Stuart Broad, 18 RHB, RMF

Made no impression as yet in the Second XI, but still only 18. Won't feature this season.

Charlie Dagnall, 28 RHB, RFM
Batting: FC 10.14; OD 10.88
Bowling: FC 31.56; OD 23.38

Has a bit of pace about him and is a pretty good one day bowler. He didn't play too much last year but will get some action this time round I think.

Philip DeFreitas, 39 RHB, RFM
Batting: FC 22.96; OD 18.57; Test 14.83; ODI 16.05
Bowling: FC 27.83; OD 27.93; Test 33.57; ODI 32.83

Old grandfather time is still knocking around, he still has a bit of nip about his bowling and his hit-and-hope approach to batting is suprisingly successful all things considered. That said, he is mainly invoked along the lines of 'Yeah mate, England were once sooo bad that even Phil DeFreitas played 40-odd Tests!'.

Nick Ferraby, 21 RHB, RM

Done alright in the Second XI, but with no pace he'd have to be special to make an impact in the big leagues. Wait and see, might get a try out.

Chris Liddle, 21 RHB, LMF

Has done pretty well for the Second XI so far and will almost certainly get a chance at some point this year.

David Masters, 26 RHB, RMF
Batting: FC 11.00; OD 9.90
Bowling: FC 34.25; OD 45.33

Nothing special at all, is probably behind a few youngsters in the pecking order now. Will probably leave next year unless something happens.

Claude Henderson, 32 RHB, SLA
Batting: FC 15.82; OD 17.50; Test 9.29
Bowling: FC 29.60; OD 24.31; Test 42.18; ODI 18.86

Another Saffie on an EU passport, he played Test cricket not too long ago and should be prety interesting on a turning track. Miserly with the runs in one day competition.

Charl Willoughby, 30 LHB, LFM
Batting: FC 4.11; OD 5.00; ODI 0.00
Bowling: FC 23.41; OD 26.40; Test 125.00; ODI 74.00

Our final 'official' overseas player, another South African. Oerhaps the climate is similar in Leicester or something . A real quality guy, will lead our attack for most of the season.

Right that's the squad onward to the first match.

[tanglewood]

Leicestershire vs Duhram -- CC Round 1

Line-Ups



Hussey is an Aussie of genuine class, Benkenstein a decent South African all-rounder and Collingwood a solid England ODI specialist. However, the big problem is Harmison, a top drawer pace bowler who has speaheaded England for the last 18 months or so.

The pitch looks in great condition, very good fo batting on. The forecast is a bit overcast on the first day, but very good weather for the rest of the match. The winner of the toss will want to bat. As it is is, we call correctly and will set up shop first.

Day 1

We get off reasonably, until Maddy plays all around a straight yorker from Harmison and is bowled for 9. Mongia and Robinson build a good partnership taking us to 92-1 until Robbo gets an unfortunate LBW decision off Breese's off-spin. Mongia and Habib push on well after lunch, with the Indian really taking on the bowling before dissapointingly thick edging a tame Ashley Noffke medium pacer ball to a wide second slip. Ackerman comes out of the blocks roaring and fires 23 from 28 balls in the half hour before tea. Again after a break we get a good partnership going, Habib and Ackerman flaying the bowleing to all parts as we look to push the run rate before Noffke gets another innocuous wicket, Habib edging to 1st just 5 short of a century in the opener. With half an hour to the close we should have been thinking consolidation, but instead carried on hard and Noffke got another with Ackerman completley missing a fuller ball which rattled his off stump. Overall a very good day though, in a good position to press the advantage.

However, an early loss inside the first twenty minutes made hard work of it. Sadler was beaten by a slower ball from Gavin Hamilton coming around the wicket to the left hander. Gibson stuck around with Nixon for a while making useful runs before befalling to Hamilton again playing an injudicious stroke. Nixon took it upon himself to start hitting as the tail looked shaky aound him, making a very impressive 90, before the tail well and truly wagged with both nos 10 and 11 making light of their supposed deficiencies with the willow. All in all, we set a very good score which could have been more, but that would have been pushing our luck.



Willoughby and DeFreitas took the new ball for us and made little early difficulty for the openers until the big South African trapped Lewis LBW for 8 with one that just held its line coming into him. When first over after lunch DeFreitas punished Beckenstein for not coming forward with an exquisite delivery to LBW him and Willoughby then clean bowled Coetzer a few overs later, we looked soundly on top. Gibson came into the attack and got hit around a bit as Hussey started gaining in fluency, before he threw it away prancing down the pitch to Henderson, who beat him with the flight and allowed nixon to whip the bails off for a stumping. When DeFreitas returned for a quick burst before the end of the day and was rewarded with Barrick top edging a cut to slip Durham looked in real trouble.



First over of day three and with Collingwood bottom edging a cut which Nixon gleefully gobbled down off of Willoughby it really was curtains for Durham. Noffke cam in and worked a decent partnership with Breese but Gibson, so innefective the previous day, got him in his first over of day 3, somewhat luckily with Noffke middiling it very low straight to a squarish midwicket, but his second in the final over before lunch caught Breese driving off the back foot a ball he should have been forward to and nicking it straight to Mongia at 1st slip. Willoughby and DeFreitas took the second new ball and smartly cleaned up the tail, allowing us to enfoce the follow on with a lead of 190 runs.

This time it was DeFreitas who got the early breakthrough, removing the dangerous Hussey for 19 with a ball that nipped back at him caught by Nixon. Bekenstein looked considerably more assured second time round bu was blown away by the pace from a Gibson special. Henderson took one more, Coetzer LBW, before the close to put us in an interesting position. 54 runs ahead, with 7 wickets to take a victory was certainly possible but we'd have to bowl exceedingly well in the first session.

As it was the opening spells from DeFreitas and Willoughby were comfortably seens off by Lewis and Barrick, who were putting on runs at a rapid pace. Soon our lead was erased and it took a poor stroke from Lewis to throw his wicket away to Gibson when Durham were leading by 16. Another 30 runs put on before lunch saw Durham looking steady, but a quick slew of wickets would certainly put us in the box seat. Durham just needed to hang on.

When Henderson LBW'ed Collingwood in the second over after lunch it looked like the slew might come, but alas it did not Barrick standing tall and making is century before falling to DeFreitas just before the next break. Willoughby took Breese almost straight after and they were 300 for 7 at tea on day 4, a win looking very unlikely from here.

Indeed no mor ewickets came after lunch, Durham making slow progress to 347 for 7 two-thirds of the way through the session before a cheeky declaration with 45 minutes left. There was little of us winning and barring an absolutely horrific collapse, they had no little either. Regardless We padded up and Maddy unfortunatley lost his wicket trying to negotiate the final 12 overs. Mongia and Robinson were not out.

Overall, a dissapointing result considering we batted so well on day 1, perhaps not quite quickly enough. Hoever, we showed we can mix it with one of th better sides in our division and our big three batsmen Mongia, Habib and Ackerman all made runs, so positives were to be had.



Next up we face Durham in a National League 45-over affair.

[AlexB]

Just found this, and am worried by the realism aspect of ICC from this - as a Leicestrian myself, all I can say is.....


































517 !!!




But as this is gonna be the Foxes' best chance of winning something this year please carry on tanglewood!

[Buccaneer]

tanglewood, thanks for posting the intro to cricket. Even though I have seen snippets of it over the decades, I never understood what was going on. After reading your well-written intro several times, I still don't understand the game. Maybe there's a site with pictures and diagrams to help ignoramus like me?

[Taco]

http://www.allworldknowledge.com/cricket/