10 myths about cricket
Ganesh
[MYTH #1] Cricketers would thrive in baseball.
[MYTH #2] Cricket was once a part of the Olympics
[MYTH #3] Cricketers are not paid enough.
[MYTH #4] The USA is a cricketing desert!
[MYTH #5] A pinch-hitter is useful only in one-day matches.
[MYTH #6] Orthodox cricketing shots are safe shots.
[MYTH #7] Any good batsman can open the innings.
[MYTH #8] There are 10 ways of getting out.
[MYTH #9] The LBW Law is straight-forward/complicated.
[MYTH #10] Field position naming is needlessly complicated!
[MYTH #1] Cricketers would thrive in baseball.
Ron Knight:-
I just love it when I hear from cricket fans how
easy it must be to bat in baseball because "it's
all full tosses". Makes me wonder why organized
professional baseball in the US and Japan, which
can offer prodigious salaries that would tempt
almost all world-class cricketers, haven't been
falling all over each other to try to tempt all
these experts at hitting the full toss to come
play baseball.
Batting the baseball is not nearly as easy as
cricketers who haven't tried it think it is.
The ball is being *thrown* from a 10-inch elevation
60 feet away and you have to hit it with a round
bat within only a 90-degree quadrant of the field.
You get only three misses, fouls, or balls that the
umpire thinks you could have hit (to simplify
somewhat).
I think that if the cricket fans here will look
beyond specific skills and general athletic
ability and consider the impact of strategy, they
will understand why baseball won't be as easy for
cricketers as all that. The strategic elements of
cricket will be a mystery to the baseball players.
Fans of cricket are fooling themselves if they
think their players will understand the strategies
of baseball any better. Fields are set in baseball
and when a player hits a ball it is very likely to
go to where a fielder is waiting for it. That is
what you get when you understand what types of hits
are likely to result from different types of
pitching.
There is no reason to think that cricketers are
going to understand the strategies of baseball
better than the baseball players are going to
understand the strategies of cricket.
[MYTH #2] Cricket was once a part of the Olympics.
Not as a legitimate competive event in the Olympics as we
know them today.
Mike Holmans:-
in 1900, .... there was a great big festival in Paris of
which the 2nd modern Olympics were a part, as well as some
other sports tournaments held over a period of several
months. The Olympic mob saw a great way of expanding their
appeal by declaring that all the sports being played in Paris
that year were part of the Olympics and awarding medals to
the winners. So there were several events which are recorded
as having taken place at the 1900 Olympics which have never
recurred, the cricket match featuring a touring club side
from Devon and some local ex-pat Englishmen opposition, as
"England" and "France" respectively, being one of them.
[MYTH #3] Cricketers are not paid enough.
"Na baap bada na bhaiya. You see the whole thing is that
Sabse bada rupaiya"
Australia
1) Steve Waugh - $315,000(Australian?) retainer
2) $600,000 if he plays full schedule
3) 25 players contracted
4) lowest retainer $80,000
England
1) 70,000 pounds for the top grade
2) 12 ECB contracted players period of 6 months
3) Based on seniority 4 different grades of 40K, 50K,
60K and 70K (in pounds)
india
1) No contracts as yet. On a per match basis.
2) ODI Rs [[[2.2]5 lakh
3) Test Rs [[[2.4]5 lakh inc. logo money and tour fees.
4) Full schedule of 43 ODIs and 10 tests = 68.2]5 lakhs
South Africa
1) Hershelle Gibbs 750,000 Rands salary
WI
1) Brian Lara got atleast 40,000$ for recent England
tour. Denies 120,000$ fee
Aux. sources of income
1) Winter coaching
2) Steady employment with a company
3) Endorsements
4) Appearances, dinner, playing golf etc
5) Articles, interviews for papers/magazines.
6) Matchfixing.
But of course if you compare what they get with Major
League Baseball salaries, they are underpaid.
[MYTH #4] The USA is a cricketing desert!
Well, it is a cricketing desert but ...
The USA is atleast semi-offically a part of the
West indies first-class structure and recently
even managed to defeat Barbados in the Red Bowl!
It's of course a different matter that most of the
players are ex-pats from the subcontinent.
There are no shortage of cricketing clubs to join
as the following list maintained at the excellent
usca site shows. http://www.usaca.org/wlinks.html
Kurt:-
To watch cricket in the U.S. requires that one install
a satellite receiver which utilizes a small 18 inch dish.
These are fairly cheap ($200 US) and can usually be obtained
at no charge if one signs up to a year of regular cable
TV type programming (around $35/month). However, all cricket
will be on PPV which charges of about $15 per ODI match and
$25 per Test match. Most ODIs are carried but which Tests
matches are offered is usually unknown until a short time
before the series in question starts.
KBS/DISH seem to be the leading provider of live
cricket on satellite TV. You can get more
information at http://www.kbs-tv.com/dev/cricket.html
[MYTH #5] A pinch-hitter is useful only in one-day matches.
A pinch-hitter is a big hitting tail-ender promoted up the
order in order to accelerate the scoring rate in a one-dayer.
They aren't expected to be there for too long, just there
to give the scoring rate a large, quick boost, and get it
on line with what is needed. The term come from Baseball,
where a pinch hitter is brought on late in the game, and
expected to go all out for the big hit.
But as Micheal Holdings will be the first to point out,
a pinch-hitter can be of considerable help in relieving
pressure in the fourth innings of a low-scoring test match.
The 20-30 runs that he can get quickly can really prove
decisive when (say) 50-60 runs are needed on a fifth day
track(which is offering considerable help to the bowlers)
[MYTH #6] Orthodox cricketing shots are safe shots.
This purely depends upon the in-born ability of the batsman.
Many techincally proficient batsman can't play the cross-batted
cricketing shots like the cut, the pull or the sweep safely.
On the other hand many talented batsmen play shots which make
the purists cringe. But the fact is, these are safe shots for
them. Some of these shots are:
[MYTH #7] Any good batsman can open the innings.
"Pig is trying to become Tiger means how it will become
Tiger? Pig will become cat, then it will get chance for
dog, then it will get chance for cheetah and lion and
then if it is showing own type of stiff it is becoming
Tiger."
- Private-anna.
The job of the openers is to provide a good start and take the
shine off the new ball. A brand new ball is hard, bouncy, and
swings due to the shine of the ball. So it is harder to bat
against a new ball. It is also somewhat difficult to begin
batting. A new batsman is more likely to get out than one who
has been on the field and scoring runs for a while.
The mindset of an opener is to play at as few balls as possible
and leave anything outside of off-stump. This mindset is totally
different from that of a talented middle-order batsman who is
constantly looking for bad balls to punish.
To summarize, an opener looks to play out a session while a
middle order batsman looks to dominate the bowling.
[MYTH #8] There are 10 ways of getting out.
This requires a bit of explaination. There are 10 ways
that a batsman can be given out by the umpires in the
middle. And there is an additional way he can be out and
bloat his average.
Note: The explainations have been simplified for the sake
of brevity and should not be taken to be the actual laws
themselves.
The 10 ways to get out in the middle are:
The 5 well-known ones:
1) Caught
2) Bowled
3) Leg Before Wicket
4) Stumped
5) Run Out
And the 5 less-frequent ones.
6) HIT WICKET: in general, when the striker touches and
breaks the wicket in attempting to hit a ball or
taking off for a first run.
7) HANDLED THE BALL: in general, when either batsman willfully
touches the ball with the hand not holding the bat and
without the consent of the opposite side.
8) OBSTRUCTinG THE FIELD: in general, when a batsman willfully
obstructs a member of the fielding side by word or action from
gathering the ball or effecting a run out.
9) HIT THE BALL TWICE: in general, when the striker willfully
hits the ball twice unless he is protecting his wicket.
10) TIMED OUT: in general, if a new batsman takes longer than
two minutes, from the time the previous wicket falls, to
appear on the field.
Now the 11th out is pretty ambigious. It is not listed with
the other outs but can be found in the law dealing with
substitions (Law 2)
in general, any batsman who refuses to bat when he is able
to do so or is refused permission to bat by the opposing
captain (he had left the field when he was able to bat on)
is for the purpose of the records deemed to be "retired, out".
Andrew Dunford:-
This makes for the odd interesting situation when a touring
team's batsmen are destroying a sub-standard local bowling
attack and want to give others a turn. When Pakistan toured
NZ in 1994, Saeed Anwar inzamam and Basit Ali all left the
pitch after they'd had a decent bat. The ruling made was
that as none of them had advised the umpires of an injury,
they were recorded as 'retired out'.
On a related note, Abdul Aziz of Pakistan has the unfortunate
distinction of being the only player to be recorded as
'retired dead'.
[MYTH #9] The LBW law is straight-forward/complicated.
-----
| | |
| | |
off <-----| | |----> leg stump(for a right-hander)
stump --|--|--|--
|__|__|__|__|
| |
-----|-----------|-------
| | | |
| | | |
|A | B |C |
| | | |
| | | |
A = Outside off stump
B = in-line with the stumps
C = Outside legstump
Depending on where you coming from, it's not as simple/
complicated as you think. For arm-chair umpires just
look at where the ball hit the batsman.
If it hits outside leg stump(REGION C), it is not out.
If it hits outside off-stump(REGION A), bastman is not out
if he played at the ball
Only after this your judgement on whether the ball would have
gone on to hit the stumps and on whether it did miss the bat
comes into play.
in addition, any ball pitched outside leg stump(REGION C)
cannot be given out.
Ask Ron Knight <r...@med.unc.edu> if you are interested in
the gory details of the procedure umpires follow.
[MYTH #10] Field position naming is needlessly complicated!
No it isn't. The conventions used take advantage of the
natural symmetry that exists between right-handedness and
left-handedness. They are named from the *batsman's*
point of view. Therefore we have *his* legside, *his*
off-stump, etc. Furthermore, while the same stroke played
by a lefthander will go to a different part of the ground
but because the stroke is the same, the *field set* for
that stroke must be the same. This fundamental insight
significantly simplifies cricket theory and therefore
maybe cricket can lay claim to being the *only* sport
with a left-hand friendly terminology. Someone inform
the folks at alt.lefthanders!
An explaination of the conventions themselves follows.
When a batsman takes his usual side-on stance, the side
towards his legs is his strong side and is called the
"on" side or leg side of the field. The other side
is called the "off" side.
For a Right Handed Batsman(RHB)
-----
| | | stance of a right-hander
| | | /
offside<----| | | /
| ||| |/
| |--->legside
--' --' or onside
For a Left Handed Batsman(LHB)
-------
| | | stance of a left-hander
| | | /
| | |---/-------->offside
| | || | /
legside<-------| | /
or onside `-- `--
Note that the field positions are named relative to the *stance*
of the batsman at the crease and *not* relative to the ground
itself. They are named from the *batsman's* point of view.
Now the field is sliced up as shown below (assuming a RHB):
Square
/
|/
* * * | * wider<--------.
* \ | * \
* \ cover | * \
* \ p| 3rd* \
* off \ | gully man * |
* \ | * |
* ||-----\---|| * V
*------------------|| \ ||wk---------------* finer
* ||------/--|| *
* / | * finer
* on / mid- | leg * ^
* / wicket | * |
* / | * |
* / | * /
/ * * * | * /
forward<---|--->backward wider<--'
squ|are
p= point
This is our basic field setting. Slips not shown since you know
all about them anyway. Now we use descriptive adjectives or
prefixes to describe exactly where in this sliced up field a
particular fielder is standing.
Short = close bat-pad position. e.g. short mid-wicket.
Silly = very close in. e.g. silly point, silly mid-off, etc
Deep = further out. Near the boundary. e.g. deep fine leg
Fine = nearer line joining stumps (see figure)
Square = nearer 90 degrees to the pitch (see figure)
Wide = further from line joining stumps'(see figure)
Backward = behind batsman's popping crease (see figure)
Forward = 'in front of batsman's popping crease (see figure)
Long = Toward the boundary, e.g. long-on, long-off.
Revision: Here's a slightly modified version of
D.W.Shepherd's diagram to show the most common field settings
GLOSSARY
.---------------------------------------------.
/ "off side" \ 1 1st slip
| | 2 2nd slip
| l- cv cp 3m | 3 3rd slip
| ec p g | 4 4th slip
| 4 | 5 leg slip
| m- 3 | cv cover
| 2 | p point
| s 1 | g gully
| B->> ||-------|| Wk | f forward -
| U||-------|| | short leg
| f 5 | s silly point
| fine | dl deep fine/
| m+ | | square leg
| | | 3m 3rd man
| l+ mw dl | l+ long on
| sl / | l- long off
| U / | mw mid-wicket
| square | sl square leg
| "leg side" | m+ mid on
| | m- mid off
`\ field positions for RHB X /' cp cover-point
`---------------------------------------------' ec extra-cover
interested in the origin of these terms? Then check out
http://www.cricketworld.com
Their history section is really good.
MYTH #11 The Packer circus did considerable damage to the game.
Here's what someone who should know has to say.
Sunil Gavaskar in his Sportstar Column "ON THE WRITE LinE"
(http://www.sportstar.com) writes:
"WAY back in 1977 a gentleman called Kerry Packer, who
owned and still owns Channel 9, was upset that his
channel was not given the rights to telecast cricket in
Australia in spite of his bid being higher than that of
the Government-controlled ABC. He also came to know that
the players were unhappy about the fees that they were
getting and the various restrictions imposed on them by
the authorities who ran the game. He took the opportunity
to not only get cricket on his channel, but also the top
players to participate in his competition by paying them
sums unheard of till then. Thus started World Series
cricket or the 'Packer Circus' as it was dubbed by the
traditionalists. The establishment awoke from its slumber
and decided to take Packer on. A clear division was
created in cricket with both the establishment and the
'circus' conducting matches. The matches in the 'circus'
were not considered official and till date the runs scored
and wickets and catches taken there are not counted in a
player's statistics in spite of the fact that it was some
of the toughest cricket ever played."
Major innovations made by the "Circus" include:
1) The very concept of night cricket
2) Colored clothing - hense "Pyjama cricket"
3) Higher fees for cricketers
4) Major innovations in television coverage
4) TV commentary as a lucrative profession for ex-players
MYTH #12 Gulli-danda is not related to cricket.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.