Cheat Sheet: 6 Things You Should Know About Cricket

Image via Complex Original

Load up any English or Australian newspaper site this week and you'll notice obvious similarities in coverage—no, not Rupert Murdoch sticking up paywalls everywhere (ooh, political), but plenty of content devoted to the Ashes. WTF is the Ashes, you ask? It's a biannual cricket tournament between England and Australia. WTF is cricket, you ask? Well, that’s what we’re here to teach you. The tournament, which will begin on Thanksgiving in Brisbane, goes on for five weeks and ends in the the new year. With the English looking to retain the Ashes in 2010-11, we decided to equip you with the knowledge you need to handle yourself in a barroom chat with an Aussie or Brit...’cause you know they like to drink. Read on to learn 6 Things You Should Know About Cricket and the Ashes...

You probably at least know that cricket is played with a bat and ball. If not...well, cricket is played with a bat and ball. Beyond that, here’s what you need to know:



THE PITCH: The cricket field is a large oval-shaped area, but all the action happens in a 22-yard-long rectangle in the center of the field. This is called the pitch, but sometimes termed the "wicket." At each end of the pitch are a set of three stumps, topped by two bails. These are the wickets.



BATTING AND BOWLING: Each team fields 11 players; one bats, and the other team bowls. Two batsmen are on the pitch at any time, while one member of the bowling team bowls as his teammates field. The bowler bowls the ball from one set of stumps to the other. He bowls six deliveries—known as an "over"—and then switches with a colleague.

RUNS AND GETTING 'OUT': The batting team is attempting to score as many runs as possible; the bowling team is trying to limit the number of runs scored and dismiss all the batsmen. A run is scored when the batsman strikes the ball and successfully runs to the other end of the wicket without being dismissed. If the ball reaches the outer boundary of the field, he scores four runs. If it does so without hitting the ground, he scores six. Batsman can be dismissed by being bowled (hitting the wickets in the act of bowling), caught (obvious), or being stumped (the fielding team hitting the stumps with the ball when the batsmen is away from them).


INNINGS AND WINNING: Matches commonly see both teams having two innings. An inning is over once all the batsmen are dismissed or the maximum allowed overs is reached. The team with the most total runs wins.

Not all cricket matches are the same. Just to make things more complicated, they have different rules and last for different lengths of time. For the sake of the Ashes, this is what you need to know:



TEST MATCHES: This is the highest level of the game. England and Australia will play five Tests, and the team who wins the most will claim The Ashes. The matches have no limit on the number of overs and can last—wait for it—up to five days! And yes, it can still end in a tie.


ONE DAY INTERNATIONALS: England and Australia also periodically face each other in ODI matches. These are limited to 50 overs per innings, so that everything is done and dusted in the space of a day. This is the format under which the Cricket World Cup is played.

The moment when the victorious team kisses the trophy and holds it aloft is a magical one. We know there’s something special about flinging a big hunk of metal above your head. And the bigger the trophy—e.g., the Stanley Cup, the Champions League "jug ears"—the better it looks. But you won’t get too carried away when you see the Ashes "trophy" lifted after 25 days of matches. It’s a terracotta urn, just six inches high, containing the ashes of a cricket ball burnt after an early match. (Quick sidebar: The "Ashes" name comes from an 1882 British newspaper article after the Aussies' first-ever victory over the Brits on English soil. The reporter wrote that the ashes of English cricket's dead body were now in the possession of Australia.) A replica of the urn is used these days, but that doesn’t detract from the comedy of that trophy-lifting moment.

Cricket’s most-feted son is perhaps India’s Sachin Tendulkar, but his country isn't involved in the Ashes, so let’s talk Brits and Aussies. England’s former biggest star, Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff, announced his retirement just this year, while Australia’s Shane Warne—the Ashes leading wicket-taker—hung up his bat in 2007 after Australia's last home Ashes. The two big names for the 2010-11 tournament are English batsman Kevin Pietersen (he was actually born in South Africa) and Australian captain Ricky Ponting.


Pietersen is capable of brilliance, but his form has been off recently, while Ponting is perhaps the greatest batsman in the world right now. Other names to look out for include Graeme Swann and Matt Prior for England and Mike Hussey and Michael Clarke for Australia.

Perhaps the one thing that marks the Ashes out in the cricket world is the intensity of the rivalry. Cricket is the gentleman’s game, par excellence—merely question an umpire’s decision and you'll get your wrists slapped. However, in the midst of a bowler-batter showdown, you can pretty much say what you like in the heat of the battle. This type of verbal sparring is known as "sledging" in cricket. Sledging is not known for the harshness of language (no beeps required in something like this), but more for the wit of the insults. For example:



"The wife's fine, but the kids are retarded."

- England legend Ian Botham replies after Aussie Rod Marsh asks him: "So, how's your wife and my kids?"



"Mate, if you turn the bat over, you'll see instructions on the back."

- Australian Merv Hughes offers a tip to England’s Graeme Hick.



"But at least I'm the best player in my family."

- England’s Jimmy Ormond response to Australia’s Mark Waugh (whose twin Steve also played) after being told: "You're not good enough to play for England."