Going Batty Cricket Confusing Sport With Plenty Of Time To Eat

I was actually watching a cricket match for 20 minutes before I realized the game had started. Such is the level of excitement in this sport, which first stuck me as a combination of baseball, golf and waiting for a bus.

Lord’s, the Wrigley Field of cricket, seemed like the ideal place to attempt to make some sense of this sport, a game that first began in the 1800’s and … well, I believe it’s still being played. Subsequent games have been shortened to just five days, or perhaps five months - I’m not sure. My grasp of cricket didn’t get much clearer during my effort to unravel it.

Herefordshire was playing against Middlesex for a short one-day game when I showed up to watch. Apparently, this was the 60th anniversary of the first televised cricket game. If that’s not reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

Keith, a fan I met in the bleachers who’d been watching cricket for 30 years (possibly the same game) tried to explain the basics.

“It’s like your baseball,” he said. “The object is to get a lot of runs when you’re batting, and get the other team out when you’re not.”

“When you’re not what?” I asked.

“Not in,” he tried to clarify, “I mean, out.”

Three sentences of explanation and I was confused already.

From what I gathered, the game works something like this: In an “innings” (which looks plural whether it is or not) there are 60 “overs” of six “legal balls.” (They’re legal as long as they’re not “no balls” or “wide of the wicket” or “there’s no foot in the crease,” whatever that means.) The ball, a cross between a baseball and a shotput, is “bowled” at up to 90 mph by a “bowler” who, before releasing it, is allowed to take a running start from as far away as Manchester.

The “wicket,” a sometimes “sticky” stretch of grass the size of a long-jump pit that’s been steamrollered before each inning (the weight of the steamroller is chosen by the team that isn’t about to “bowl”), is where the “batsman” tries to hit the ball while protecting three wooden croquet pegs, called “stumps,” and a wooden bar resting on top of them, called a “bail.” He does this with his ice-hockey goalie pads or his “bat,” a flat paddle commonly used in America to butt-thump newly initiated fraternity pledges into their beerdrinking brotherhood.

If the “bowler” gets the ball past the “batsman” and knocks off the “bail,” then the “bowler” gets hysterically happy and jumps around like a male cheerleader. If the “batsman” hits the ball, he tries to run back and forth across the “wicket” as many times as possible while carrying the “bat” and wearing his goalie pads. If a fielder manages to catch the ball before it hits the ground, he immediately throws it straight up in the air and jumps around like a male cheerleader. That’s about it.

“It’s really all quite simple,” Keith assured me.

It’s hard to tell who the players are because they don’t have numbers or names printed on their jerseys; they just wear white. Both teams. If everyone stood on the field at once, it would look like a casting call for a bleach commercial. You can just barely distinguish the two umpires, who are dressed like cabana boys. Spectators are forever coming and going, playing Scrabble and reading books. They seem to be watching the match merely as a distraction.

Keith pointed out that, in fact, cricket might go over well with an American audience because there’s plenty of time for food and beverage consumption. In fact, while we were talking, they stopped the game so both players and fans could take a 40-minute lunch break.

I decided to head up to the press box for some expert opinion. They were all enjoying a beautifully catered lunch, so I helped myself at the buffet. Then I sat in the press viewing area, where I noticed some of the players had returned to the field with their drinks; they just set their glasses down next to them and continued sipping between “overs,” or perhaps “wickets.”

There were about 10 journalists in the room, including Norman, the vocal elder statesman of cricket; Derek, a former Cambridge cricket star who played on the English national team and now writes for a London newspaper; and Qamar, a Pakistani free-lancer who had visited nearly every cricket ground in the world and would happily tell you about each of them.

“What just happened?” I asked Derek.

“He snicked it to the wicket keeper, who caught the edge.”

“What?”

“Well,” explained Norman, “you could also say he edged it to the wicket keeper, who caught the snick. It’s really the same thing.”

“Does the game have any exciting moments?” I asked the group, who all shot me rather harsh glances.

“There’s streaking,” piped Qamar. I asked him to explain.

“At big international test matches, there are often some attractive women who will streak across the field and try to hug the players,” he said.

“When does this happen?” I asked.

“Usually after the afternoon tea break,” he said. The others nodded their agreement.

I asked Stuart Weatherhead, the Lord’s public relations director, if I could hit a few balls in the warm-up area.

“Impossible. I can’t allow it,” he said, which simply made me want to do it even more. I walked over to the batting cages, where two Middlesex players, David Nash and Tim Bloomfield, were warming up, and asked if I could hit a few. They said it was no problem and loaned me some of their gear.

I have to tell you, cricket takes on an entirely new level of excitement when you’re trying to fend off a ball coming at you at what seems like 400 mph with a fraternity paddle, and you’re not wearing any private-part protection. Nash also threw some slower “spin balls” at me, which would skip off the ground about a yard in front of me, then kick up in any number of directions, except where I was swinging.

By the time I walked back to the press box, Stuart had already gotten word of my little practice session, and was waiting for me with crossed arms.

We both knew it was a bit late to do anything about it. And besides, it was tea time.