Yorkball goes through the gates and off stomps out, sending the pinch hitter back to the hut for a golden duck. A real Jaffa!
Understood?
It all makes perfect sense in places like England, India, Pakistan, Australia and the Caribbean, where cricket has a long history and huge fan base. But if you're scratching your head about what it all means, worry no more.
Here, The Associated Press offers a guide for casual cricket watchers, including what they'll see and hear at the Twenty20 World Cup, which will be played in the United States and the Caribbean from June 1 to 29. Of the three main formats of international cricket, T20 is the shortest.
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Fundamentals:
Wicket
It's a key word in cricket and has a few different meanings (nobody ever said cricket was easy).
“Taking a wicket” means that the pitcher has gotten the batsman out. An innings ends when 10 wickets are taken. When a wicket is taken, the batsman can be dismissed by being bowled, caught, run out or trapped leg-before wicket. Wicket can also refer to the three wooden stumps at either end. The batsman runs between the wickets and scores a run each time he crosses them. Wicket can also refer to the 22 yards (20 metres) between the two sets of stumps. When you hear “good batting wicket”, you can expect a lot of runs.
inning
In the Twenty20 World Cup, each team (11 players) plays one innings (not an innings). The captains toss a coin and the winner decides whether their team will bat first or bowl first. A maximum of 10 wickets can be taken in each innings until the team is out and the opposing team is batting. If the scoreboard shows 150-4, it means the team has scored a total of 150 runs and lost 4 wickets (4 out of a maximum of 10 players are out). The higher the first number of the score like 150-4 (50 is very bad, 200 is very good) and the lower the second number, the better the batting team is doing. A 10-wicket win means that a team has outscored their opponents without losing a wicket. It is like winning 6-0, 6-0 in tennis.
that's all
T20 World Cup matches are played with 20 overs per team. An over has 6 balls. Not all teams use up their overs and can lose 10 wickets before the end of the 20 overs. Overs are also important for bowlers to take turns bowling at the opposite end. Once an over is over, that is, it is the batter at the opposite end's turn to face the next bowler. If no runs are scored in an over, the bowler is considered to have bowled a no-run over. And then there are the so-called death overs, which became a cricket term with the growing popularity of T20 cricket. These are the last two overs where the batter takes all the risks to hit as many boundaries as possible.
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Weird stuff:
Beamer
A beamer is an illegal delivery where a bowler throws the ball at the batsman's head without allowing it to bounce. It happens very rarely, almost always by accident, and for the first time in this guide, it doesn't happen in cricket.
boundary
If a batsman hits the ball over the edge of the field (the boundary), he scores four points, and if the ball hits without bouncing, he scores six points. At Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, a batsman has hit the ball out of the stadium and into the nearby River Taff, which does not score any additional points but does not require the purchase of a new ball.
good bye
It's not a farewell to a friend, but part of what are called “extras” that add at least one point to the team's score. On a bowler's bad day, the total of extras can add up quickly. One type of extra is called a wide, which is when the ball travels so far away from the batsman that he has almost no chance of hitting it, no matter how long his arms are.
Chin Music
Beamers are no good, play some chin music instead. A fast bowler aims to bounce the ball so that it rises sharply around the batter's face. Passing close enough to the batter's nose that he can smell the leather is also called a sniff, or simply a bouncer.
Cow Corner
It's not an actual animal. It's not a corner. It's just a position covering part of the field where the opposing team tries to catch one of the two batsmen. Other strange cricket positions include third man (who is on the boundary and can often be seen chatting to spectators at village cricket matches), first slip (who stands next to the wicket-keeper) and silly point (where a fielder gets dangerously close to the batsman).
Golden Duck
For a batsman, this is the ultimate humiliation. He has to don pads for protection, walk a long way to the middle of the field, and be out by the first ball. The batsman returns to the dressing room/locker room/pavilion/shed in embarrassment. There is the standard “duck” where a batsman holds out for one or more balls but fails to score. There is also the infamous diamond duck, where a player is run out without facing a ball.
Googly
While this isn't exactly an adjective to describe an Internet search engine, it is in fact one of the most difficult balls to throw in cricket. Bowled by a spin bowler, it travels towards the batter, rather than bouncing away from him. What makes it particularly difficult is that it comes off the back of the bowler's hand, meaning the batter has no idea what's coming his way. Television viewers can tell just by watching the ball.
Jaffa
His pitches are so good that they are almost impossible to hit, and the batters often just nod in acknowledgement.
No ball
This does not mean that the leather ball has disappeared, but rather that the bowler has overstepped the “popping” crease when delivering, or the ball has passed high over the batsman, which adds one ball to the over and one run to the batting team's total score.
plum
If the ball hits the batsman before or after hitting the bat and in front of the stumps directly under his feet, it is usually considered a “vertical” leg-before-wicket (LBW) decision, meaning that if the ball had not hit the batsman's feet first, it would undoubtedly have hit the stumps.
Sitter
Even the simplest catch usually results in a routine out, and when a fielder misses a golden opportunity, it attracts extra attention from the crowd.
stump
To take a wicket, a bowler aims the ball at three vertical bars (stumps) with two horizontal bars at the top. Each stump has a name: the leg stump is the one closest to the batsman's legs, the middle stump is (what?) in the middle, and the off stump is the other stump. There are two sets of stumps, one at each end of the pitch. 'Stumps' are also used in the longer version of the game to mark the end of play for the day.
Gate
In cricket, it's best to keep the gate closed – the bowler is aiming for the gap between the bat and the pads – if you close the gate you risk the ball hitting the pads and being out LBW (leg before wicket).
Yorker
Did a cricketer from Yorkshire in the north of England coin the term? Its origins remain a matter of debate, but there's no doubt what it is. A yorker is a ball that hits the ground at the crease near the batsman's feet. The batsman can do little more than block it. Some batsmen lose their balance and fall. Others miss the ball altogether and hear the sound of it hitting the stumps. Australian left-arm pace bowler Mitchell Starc is well known for his inswinging yorker.
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AP Cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
