A Note on Cricket

A NOTE ON CRICKET HE themes of this book reach, as its title suggests, far be- T yond the boundaries of the cricket field, and no detailed knowledge of the game is needed to appreciate their impli- cations. However, an introduction to the terminology and rudimen- tary outlines of play may prove useful. Two teams of eleven players each contend on a huge grassy oval, often as large as a football field, in the center of which lies the cricket pitch—a closely cropped area (occasionally covered by a mat) 22 feet by 5 feet, at either end of which stands a wicket—three vertical stumps connected at the top by two horizontal pieces called bails. The batsman and bowler face each other from opposite ends of the pitch, standing in front of the wickets in areas demarcated by lines called creases (popping creases, bowling creases, and return creases). The distance between them is about the same as that between a baseball pitcher and batter. Rules specify where each must stand while throw- ing or batting, and which parts of the body may extend beyond the creases when. The boundary is the line that encircles the perimeter of the entire playing field, and across the field are strewn—in designated positions—members of the fielding (bowling) team. Point, cover point, silly point, long-stop, extra cover, mid-off, silly mid-off, short leg, and long leg all refer to specific fielding positions (there are over thirty, including the bowler and the wicketkeeper, who functions much like a baseball catcher, with an equally critical and subtle, yet oft unheralded, role). Orientation on the field and corresponding directions are taken lat- erally from the batsman’s stance, which is perpendicular to the bowler (as batter to pitcher in baseball). The off side is that facing the bats- xxiv A Note on Cricket man; the leg or on side is behind him as he stands to receive the hurled ball. The bowler must throw with his elbows straight, delivering the ball with an overarm, catapulting motion, much like a jai-alai player’s, and less like that of a baseball pitcher, who makes more use of the gyroscopic capacities of wrist and elbow when “firing” at the plate. The off-break, leg break, and much dreaded (by James’s companions) dead shooter describe different pitches, which can vary widely and dramatically according to the speed, spin, and swerve with which the ball is delivered. The googly, for example, which W. G. Grace meets “late in life and was said to be troubled by,” is a kind of cricket screw- ball that turns in a way designed to catch the batsman by surprise—a powerful tool in a game that revolves to a great degree around the ef- fort to catch the batsman unawares and make him “pop up” by hitting the ball with the edge, rather than the flat part, of the bat. The bowler hurls the ball alternately from each wicket in sets called overs—six to eight balls per over (varying from country to country). When the requisite number of balls has been bowled, a new over is begun by a different bowler. The captain of the fielding team may al- low any of his players to bowl, so long as no one bowls two succes- sive overs. When James recounts, at an early moment in the book, that he has bowled three maiden overs, he’s completed three overs in which no runs have been scored from the bat (that is, runs involving balls actually struck)—a feat of no small dexterity that can be duly appreciated by any pitcher who’s attempted to carve out a no-hitter. The condition of the pitch itself is critical to the game. Since the bowler essentially delivers a short-hop ball to the batsman, his effec- tiveness can be greatly changed (for the better or the worse) by the surface the ball hits—hence the attention to a wet, uneven, or mat- ted pitch. The bat is wooden, slightly over three feet long, and flat like a pad- dle with a slight wedge in it. The ball is made of red leather and weighs slightly more than a baseball; it is about nine inches in circumference. Players bat in pairs—one member of the batting team standing at each wicket. Their task is to keep the thrown ball from hitting the wicket by batting it away (here they function much like hockey goalies, but with the added benefit of being able to score points depending on how and where they hit the ball); in addition they attempt to score points by running across the pitch to the opposite wicket, in effect exchanging A Note on Cricket xxv places with each other. The batsman, therefore, tries to hit the ball in a way that gives him enough time to run to the other end of the pitch (while his non-batting partner runs to his end) before any fieldsman retrieves the ball and throws it back to one of the wickets. The key for the batsman, therefore, is not necessarily to hit the ball as hard as possible, but to hit it where there are no fieldsmen, which can even mean hitting it backwards, or behind himself. The fielding team, in anticipation or response, is constantly shifting positions, trying to get the batsman to make a mistake. Because of the many psychological calculations being made by batsmen, bowlers, and fieldsmen through- out the game, each trying to wear the other down, matches may seem to take a relatively long time to complete. A run is scored each time the two batsmen cross on the pitch and successfully reach the opposite end before the fielding team can dislodge a bail in either wicket. They may exchange places up to six times per stroke (or hit). If the ball reaches the boundary of the field before being stopped, a total of four runs is scored automatically; if it reaches the boundary full pitch (on the fly, without hitting the ground—a cricket “homer”), six are scored. Extras, or additional runs, may also be scored for the batting team if the ball is bowled wide or high in a specific way or if the umpire calls a no-ball because the bowler has used an illegal hurling motion or stepped across the crease illegally (similar to a balk). In some instances, when the ball is bowled in this fashion, the batsmen may still run across the pitch to score even more additional points, much as a baserunner may advance on a wild pitch. A player achieves a century when he scores 100 runs in a single innings before being dismissed. A batsman can be dismissed, or eliminated, in a number of ways: if the bowler can dislodge a bail in the wicket with the hurled ball or the batsman does the same accidentally with his bat or body; if a fieldsman catches the batted ball before it touches the ground or dislodges a bail while the batsmen are running; if the bowler is lbw (leg before wicket)—a kind of illegal interference, where he keeps the ball from hitting the wicket by stopping it with something other than his bat, batting hand, or glove; if he illegally moves beyond the crease while receiving the ball (steps out of the batter’s box, so to speak), handles the ball illegally, or deliberately obstructs the field. Each team bats in turn, completing an innings when ten of its eleven xxvi A Note on Cricket members have been dismissed. One-day matches usually consist of one innings per side, won by the team accumulating the most runs in their single innings. Test or international matches can go for thirty playing hours—lasting up to six days—with the winner determined by the aggregate score of two or more innings..

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