cricket

yes, I know, the posts did come more frequently at the beginning of my stay here...

last saturday was cricket time. I had tried to watch a game on tv before but could not quite figure out the rules. this time, I was to physically witness a cricket game on early saturday morning; our company has its own team which participates in a tournament between local companies.

I did not really expect me to understand the rules. having tried, and failed, to do so with regards to baseball, did not really boost my confidence here either. however, I was proved wrong: a quick introduction using wikipedia over breakfast equipped me with sufficient knowledge to understand 90 per cent of the game. I could actually tell when our team scored! in a nutshell, it is two batsmen of one against all players of the other team. the two batsmen, standing in the middle of the field, face each other and one is thrown a ball by the bowler. he tries to hit it as far as possible. if he does, the two batsmen try to trade positions as long as the ball is not returned to the centre of the field. this is the job of the bowler's team mates, who are scattered all over the playing field ("fielding"). one exchange of positions between the batsmen equals one point ("run"); if they are not back behind the batsmens' lines when the ball is returned, they are "out" or "dismissed". every batsman gets six balls to score (=one "over"); if he does not, he is also "out" and will be replaced by the next player (until everybody in the team has batted and was taken out). if the batsman hits the ball out of the field without it touching the ground, he automatically scores six "runs" (four if the ball hits the ground somewhere in between). just like a homerun in baseball. the phase of the game during which one team is fielding and the other is batting is called "innings" (yes, including the "s").

of course, there are more specific rules, particularily when it comes to dismissing the batsmen but let us leave it at the aforementioned for now. with the rules presented above, you will be able to follow every cricket game.

one word about the different cricket game types: one version, "test cricket", can go on for days. literally, for days. then there is "twenty20" which limits the number of overs to 20 per team. in our case, we played one innings per team, that is, each team had to both score and defend once.

cricket is not india's national sport #1; some indians deem this one of the greatest misconceptions in today's world. instead, india's national sport is hockey! then again, cricket succeeds in attracting more attention and money these days. still, everybody i asked assured me that hockey remains what soccer is in germany.

enough words, here are some pictures. admittedly, they do not convey the impression that this game is particularily exciting...

how did we do? we lost. big time. especially one of the german translators, nikhil, was frustrated with his bowling. next weekend, the last game of the season will take place.

sunday morning, 7 a.m. sleep against lower temperatures, what a deal.

ti-bob