How do you accumulate points when you are playing cricket?

Answer 1

Ok, it has two teams, you play on an oval field which has a rectangular pitch, you play in the middle of it, the pitch is 22 yards in length, each team has 11 players, and generally 1 sub player, at the start of the game, the captain from each team goes out to the middle with the umpires. And you toss a coin and whoever wins the toss has a choice to bat or field first.

Batting: when batting you have two batsman in centre at a time* The batsman are your openers, then you have between 5 and 7 middle order batmen, and then to follow between 2 and 4 lower order batsman, who are generally when you are fielding, your bowlers. Your objective when batting is to score as many runs as you can in the allotted number of overs, and to lose as few wickets as possible.

Fielding: the fielding side has all 11 players out in the centre, the fielding side consists of a wicket keeper, a bowler and 9 fielders. A bowler's objective is to have as few runs scored off his over as possible and to try and take wickets. The fielder's objective is when the batsman hits the ball, to stop runs from actually being scored by stopping the ball.

Runs: Runs can be scored in singles, twos, threes, fours and sixes, fours and sixes are called boundaries, this is when the batsman hits the ball and it goes over the boundary rope (the outer marking of the field). A four is a boundary along the ground - having bounced, a six is when it goes over the boundary rope without touching the ground. There are other types of runs, generally called extras, they consist of wides, leg byes, byes, no balls. These are generally contributed when the bowler or fielder make a mistake.

Wickets: There are a numbers of ways of getting out while batting:

* You can be bowled - when bowler bowls ball and it hits your wickets.

* You can be caught - bowler bowls ball, you hit it, and a fielder, wicket keeper or bowler catches the ball before it bounces.

* LBW - Leg Before Wicket - ball hits leg while standing in front of wicket. See:

* Run-out - The ball is returned to the stumps and the bails are dislodged (with the ball) from the stumps before the running batsman makes his ground.

* Stumped - The batsman, when trying to hit a ball bowled at him, leaves his ground and the wicket-keeper succeeds in dislodging the bails from the stumps before the batsman can remake his ground.

Answer 2

Assuming you are American, you can picture a Baseball park, except instead of being an irregular shape, the playing surface is almost circular, or at least an oval. In the middle of the playing surface is what is called the wicket. It's a strip of what used to be grass rolled and squeezed to be the color and consistency almost of concrete. It's about 60 feet long and at each end are three round posts about 30 inches high and an inch or so thick spaced about four inches apart.

A batter has to guard against the pitcher (or in cricket terms, a bowler) hitting these posts (called stumps) with the ball, so obviously instead of the ball getting to the hitter (or batsman) on the fly, he usually bounces it somewhere in front of the batsman. Where he bounces it makes the ball do different things: it could swing in or out like a slider, or take off like a rocket and play some "chin music." Hitting a batsman in the head or body gives the batsman nothing free except a bruise; there's no take your bas in cricket.

Now, I said that there is a batsman at each end, so it makes sense that one is trying to hit the ball and one is doing nothing. When the batsman hits the ball, he can decide whether or not it is safe enough to run: he does not have to run if he hits the ball straight at a fielder along the ground (if the fielder catches it on the fly, the batsman is out). If he decides it is safe, he calls the guy who is just watching, and they sprint to the other end of the wicket. Each time they get to the other end before the ball comes back from the outfield is one run to add to the total

They can save some energy if the batsman hits the ball hard enough to reach the perimeter of the playing surface. Instead of a fence, there is a rope, and if the ball bounces over the rope he is automatically given four runs without running anywhere. If he hits it hard enough to go over the rope without bouncing first, he gets six runs to add to his total (and the team total, of course). Unlike a batter in baseball, who sits down after a homer, the batsman stays out playing. He can only sit down when he is out, and because cricket is usually played over either a whole day or a full five days, he needs to stay out there as long as he can to pile up as many runs as he can before he is either out by being caught, or the bowler hits his stumps with the ball, or the catcher (or wicket-keeper) can hit the stumps with the ball while the batsman is out of the equivalent of the batter's box. He can also be called out by the umpire if the umpire thinks the ball would have hit the stumps except the batsman's legs were in the way.

The umpire can add a run to the team total (but not the batsman's total) if he thinks the bowler sent down a ball so wide that the batsman couldn't have reached it with 10-foot arms. Sometimes the bowler sends down a ball so fast and so hard that it sails over the head of both batsman and wicketkeeper and races away to the rope and over it, in which case that's four to the team total (but again, not to the batsman).

A batsman will usually get mild applause at 50 (or wild applause if it a number 9 batsman grittily refusing to go down) and extra applause at 100, which is quite a nice score in the modern age. Very rarely, on a day when the wicket is not helping a bowler who relies on speed and in or outswing to fool a batsman, he can hit 200. Only extremely rarely does 300 come up for a batsman.

Some days a whole team can be skittled out for less than 70 in just a few hours; on others the same team can take a day and a half or more to pile up 550 before the other team gets a chance to bat.

That's the short version, anyway.
Phil

Answer 3

Cricket is played with 2 teams on an oval field with a strip that runs down the middle. The bowler stands on the strip and rolls the ball to the other teams striker. Wickets are placed behind the bowler and the striker and is guarded by a wicket keeper, who is wearing gloves. Break the wicket behind the bowler and the striker is out!