Umm how excited am I?

[almaty 19]

pakistan...i got to stick with my homies

Edited June 7, 2006 by almaty2004

[silvanski 1]

If you know about baseball, you'll also grasp cricket (a good read)

and...

The world of cricket for dummies

During the Cricket World Cup, the world will be made of two types of people — those who talk cricket and those who don't. Those who do talk are again classifiable as those who talk correctly and those who can't. A population that would be the majority is those who have all sorts of doubts about cricket. Such as:

How is cricket different from football?

There are many differences between the two. Essential and visible differences are that, in cricket the ball size is smaller, people who are active are fewer, and goal posts are made of three stumps at either end. Cricket is called a gentlemen's game, which by implication means that football is for...

When `seven wickets were down', I could count six and they were up!

You're right about the number, but what you counted were the stumps. Wickets are the figurative way of referring to players.

Batsmen may come, and batsmen may go, but?

So, you're having difficulty finishing that twisted quote. You can wrap it up by saying, "But the score remains the same," if a nervous team is at the crease.

Can I see a 'no ball'?

No ball is a ball that has been thrown from outside the boundaries of the correct bowling position, that is, the popping crease. If the umpire doesn't see, it is not a no ball. But if he sees, then he says no ball.

In fact, the cricket law on `no ball' is as complicated as a deeply-laid section in the Income Tax Act. For example, read this: "If a ball delivered by the bowler comes to rest in front of the striker's wicket, without touching the bat or the striker, the umpire shall signal `no ball' and immediately call and signal `dead ball'."

Do they burn the dead, or cremate them?

If you're referring to the dead balls, they come back to life for the next delivery.

When a fielder overthrew, somebody shouted, 'Balls'. But I could see only one.

You may have to look up the 'language advisory' in Encarta Dictionary.

Will England win?

Yes, one day or the other.

My friend says bails are thumbnail version of stumps.

Though they look like that, your friend seems to suffer from an overdose of Net surfing. Bails are small cylinders balanced at the top of three vertical stumps, and the entire unit is called the wicket.

When a bowler bowls a maiden over, how can we locate her?

In a big stadium, it would be difficult to locate unless the TV cameraman comes to the rescue. To come back to cricket, maiden over refers to bowling six balls without conceding a run.

To see the fine legs, should I crawl under the chairs?

Hey, get back to your seat. A fine leg, whether short or long, is a field position. If you're too curious about slips, they are field positions directly behind the wickets adjacent to the wicketkeeper and can be occupied by up to five players.

When players do a mid-pitch conference, what would they discuss?

About strategy, they say. More likely, they may talk of quite mundane things such as about how they were lucky to survive till then. Or, "When will we go home?"