First things first:
- Cricket, even though is a screeching insect, is also a game played by 2 teams.
- It's not a game where people sit on top of horses trying to score a goal. That's referred to as Polo.
- It's not baseball with flat bat, neither there are hitters, pitchers or sluggers.
- It's not another name for baseball.
- It's not even a bastardized baseball.
- It doesn't have goals or points or yellow cards or red ones.
- It's not J.K. Rowling's Quidditch.
- And finally, cricket is not a game of "AMERICA", though they may start playing and apply for a patent few years down the line.
- Cricket is a British game started as early as 17th century.
- It's a game played between 2 teams of 11 players each on an oval ground.
- The middle of the ground will have a 22 yards long rectangular pitch with 2 wickets at the end.
- At each wicket stands a person with a wooden bat in hand, mainly to hit the ball. He is called the batsman.
- A guy throws a leather ball from one set of wickets to another, towards the batsman. He is the bowler.
- Rest of the team members are called fielders. The guy just behind the batsman is called the Wicket keeper.
- Wickets are, for the sake of simplicity, 3 sticks of wood each 28 inch high, spanning 9 inches which supports bails, which are hammered into ground. Bails are light and tiny pieces of wood.
- The aim of batsman is to hit the ball and score runs while the aim of bowler is to get the batsman out. The batsman doesn't throw the bat while running.
- Ways to get out: ball hitting the wicket (bowled), any of the fielder catching the ball hit by the batsman (caught out), any of the fielder throwing the ball at wicket when the batsman are running and haven't reached the crease (run out), keeping a leg before the wicket (LBW), wicket keeper hitting the wickets with the ball when batsman is out of crease (stumped out)
- There are some boundaries which if the ball crosses when hit by the batsman, gives bonus scores like 4 and 6 runs.
- Once the batsman gets out, the next one in the team will start batting.
- Each bowler throws six balls which is called an "Over"
- If the ball is away from batsman then it's termed a "Wide ball" and is an invalid throw. If the ball is higher than the shoulder then it's termed a "No ball" and is invalid.
- Fast bowlers can be really powerful throwing balls at around 160 Km/h. The batsman wears helmet, pads, gloves and abdomen guards to prevent himself getting killed by the hard leather ball, so does wicket keeper.
- Spin bowlers on the other hand are slower, but balls move in a funny way making it hard for the batsman to hit.
- A batsman can cut the ball, drive the ball, flick the ball, strike the ball, sweep the ball or hit the ball.
- And the old stooped dude, who makes doing weird symbols is called the Umpire. He is a kind of referee, making critical decisions and indicating the crowd with special symbols indicating 4s, 6s, outs and many others.
- Some of the countries which are into cricket are England, India, Australia, Pakistan, Srilanka, Kenya, Holland, Bangladesh, New Zealand etc.