Sports Break - Cricket

This has more to do with TV than cricket, so bear with me and hear me out (and other similar figures of speech). This past weekend, I found myself watching Cricket, and didn't immediately change the channel. But maybe a little background is necessary.

When I first moved here, a lot of my friends cheered for the Vancouver Canucks or the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League. Now, I couldn't care less about hockey (well, maybe I could, but it wouldn't be much less before I didn't care at all), so whenever someone asked me who I cheered for, I politely demurred. After a few times, in an effort to stand out, I finally said that I cheered for Bangladesh in the World Cup of Cricket (I needed an obscure team and an obscure sport). Soon, nobody asked me who I cheered for.

But in an effort to actually back up my flippant remarks, I took a trip to Wikipedia, and found out that Bangladesh actually had a team in the World Cup of Cricket, and it was taking place that year. But guess who also had a team? CANADA!

Neither team did that well in the world cup of 2007 or 2011. Bangladesh won one game in 2007, and Canada's greatest feat was putting up 300 in a loss to New Zealand (getting 300 would be like scoring about 27 points in Football - a good total, but not guaranteeing victory).

I also looked up the rules of cricket so that I could understand whatever was written about it afterwards. I won't explain all the rules (since that's best left to people who actually understand it), but I'll give a quick overview.

There are 11 players on each side. One team bats, the other team fields. In the field, most of the team stands around the outside. There's a bowler (like a pitcher in baseball) and a wicket-keeper (like a catcher in baseball) as well. The other teams have two batsmen at either end of a strip of dirt in the middle of the field, called the pitch. There are wickets at each end of the pitch.

So the bowler hurls the ball at the batsman, who takes a whack at it. If he misses and the ball hits the wickets, knocking off the top bits (called the stumps), he's out. If he misses it but it misses the wickets, nothing happens. If he hits it into the air and a fielder catches it, he's out. If he hits it so it rolls past the outer circle (like a ground-rule double), that's 4 runs. If he hits it in the air past the circle (like a home run), that's 6 runs. Other wise, if he hits it, he and the other batsman run like the dickens between the two wickets set up at either end of the pitch. If one of them isn't at one of the wickets and a fielder throws the ball and knocks off the stumps, the batsman's out. Anytime the batsmen switch places, that's a point.

If the batsmen end up at different ends of the pitch than where they started, the bowler pitches to the other batsman. Once a batsman's out, he's replaces by the next guy in line.

Once the bowler has bowled six times, that's an over, and a different bowler is brought in to bowl the other direction. For example, Bowler 1 will bowl from East to West on the pitch six times. Then Bowler 2 will come in and bowl from West to East six times. Then Bowler 1 will come back in and bowl East to West, and so on and so forth. Bowlers can be changed after each over (like bringing in a relief pitcher) but not mid-over, if I understand correctly. So if a bowler's getting shelled, the team has to live with it for at least six balls.

In one-day test matches, each team has 50 overs (300 balls) to put up as many runs as they can. If all their batsmen get out during that time, that's it (so it's weird that cricket has two possible endpoints. Like having a time limit on baseball, or also having first-to-five in hockey). In real cricket, the game is over when each team has ten players out (since the last batsman would be stranded without a partner). Twice. So they last a while. Like, five days a while.

That's about it for rules. There are some more complicated ones (like leg-before-wicket) but that's like any sport. Have you tried to explain the eligible receiver rule to anyone who still plays football with a sphere and no hands?

Anyway, the games that I watched on the weekend were T20 matches, which are limited to 20 overs for each team. That way, they only take up a few hours, which is about the only way to hook in a North American audience (we're used to televised sports being about 3 hours in length). How Soccer-mad audiences get into it, I don't know, since soccer's limited to pretty much 90 minutes and some change. Makes for good programmable TV, if you don't mind the immense boredom.

The first match I watched was an exhibition game between the Asian all-stars and the all-stars of everywhere else (So Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, pretty much). It took place at the Rogers centre (in Toronto), which is usually used for Baseball and occasionally for football (the Argonauts of the Canadian Football League play there). The audience was expectedly small, filled mostly with immigrants and confused people who were wondering why a Blue Jay's game was so cheap, and why haven't they set up the diamond correctly?

Anyway, I watched the International team put up 164 runs, which I thought was pretty good. Extending that to 50 overs would mean over 400 runs, which would be a really good total for a one day test match. However, that's actually a pretty low score for a T20 match, proving that Cricket nuance is lost on me. I didn't watch the Asians bat (video games were calling), but the replays showed the International side getting a trophy, so presumably they had some superb bowling that kept the Asians under 164.

The next day was an actual meaningful match from the IPL (Indian Premier League) between the Deccan Chargers and the Kings XI Punjab (XI in roman numbers is 11 - the number of players on a team). The Deccan Chargers are in last place (9th), the King's XI not much better (7th). A clash of the titans, this was not.

While watching cricket, I noticed a few things that were different from how most North American sports are broadcast. For one thing, replays were done with the sound on. In other sports, replays have the sound off because it often cuts to slow-motion at some point. And while that's also true in Cricket, they leave the sound on. So while a hit for 6 might produce a satisfying "Thwack" in real time, the replays will slow it down and we'll get a long-drawn out "ttthhhwwwuuuuuuuuucccckkkk." And then a very low crowd roar, as thousands of voices are suddenly at a quarter of the frequency they're normally at. It's kinda funny, and pretty unexpected. What sounds will that make in slow-motion? is a fun game to play.

Secondly, they had wired up one of the wicket-keepers. Now, in most sports, they have a mic'd up section, where they put a small microphone on one of the players to hear what they have to say, and then they can edit it down to 30 seconds for an informative piece at half time ("Here's what a linebacker sounds like when he tackles a running back!"). This time, though, they also have him an earpiece. And then they interviewed him during game play! This was incredible! Like if they interviewed a pitcher during his pitches (well, more like a catcher in between pitches). Either being a wicket-keeper is actually pretty easily (blatantly not the case), or this guys is so good he doesn't need his whole brain for wicket-keeping.

Well, at the end of the day, the Deccan Chargers put up 190, and then I went to play video games (because my Sith Warrior is not going to get to level 50 on his own, even if he can dual-wield lightsaber). Punjab won 194 to 190, and I will definitely be watching next Saturday, when the Pune Warriors take on the Kolkata Knight Riders. Yes, it’s weird for me to like cricket, but I’m oddly mesmerized, and it’s probably a good idea for me to expand my sporting experiences beyond what’s limited to North America plays. Just not Soccer.