an american watches cricket

It's no secret that I'm a baseball fan. Or was a baseball fan. I'm not sure what's the most accurate way to describe my level of interest in baseball. Whatever. I am knowledgeable about the mechanics of the game, so I can watch a game, and understand what's going on, what the basic strategies are, etc.

But cricket...that mysterious relative of baseball that they play elsewhere in the English-speaking world? That has remained a mystery to me. Not that I'd ever made any effort to understand it, mind you.

Until now.

We have an English friend visiting -- I'll refer to him as "Rich" since that's his name, and I decided to take the opportunity to learn cricket. Sort of. The strategy was pretty simple: We'd find a complete match on Youtube, and watch it together while he explains it to me. It's not unlike the strategy I employed to explain baseball to Sharon a couple years back. Of course, she got bored of it pretty quickly, so it was a bust. Oh well. But I'm more motivated to understand cricket than she was to understand baseball, so I had that going for me, which was nice. As a disclaimer, I should note that the Youtube video above is not the same match that Rich and I watched. I couldn't find that one. But this was played in the same stadium. Or on the same pitch? Is that the terminology? I think so.

Anyway, after one game I'm still no expert -- "I'll take 'duh' for a thousand, Alex." And even if I were, I wouldn;t try to explain it here. Because there's really no need for me to explain the sport. But I have a few observations* -- generally about the differences.

• In baseball, the two teams alternate turns at bat. That is, the visiting team bats for one inning, then the home team bats for one inning, then the visiting team, etc. In cricket, one team bats its full allotment for the game, and then the other team bats its full allotment. I like the baseball way better.
• In cricket, the ball can be hit in play in any direction -- a full 360 degrees. That just looks so odd to someone like me who's used to seeing a game where, only 90 degrees is considered in play.
• It strikes me as odd that the batter, having hit the ball into play, can decline to run. If he doesn't run, he can't get thrown out. In baseball, of course, the batter must attempt to get to first base -- if he decides not to run, he can still get thrown out.
• The players run with their bat. WTF?
• There are always two runners -- the batter and the runner on the other base (unlike baseball, there are only two bases). They must coordinate their decision and both run or both not run. In the game Rich and I watched, there was one play where they miscommunicated -- one ran and the other didn't.
• You get a point for every base you advance (as opposed to baseball, where you get nothing until you've advanced four bases).

All in all, it was kind of interesting to watch, though I think I still prefer baseball. Of course, that may be simply that I understand baseball better. Maybe I'll watch another game with Rich at some point. Or -- radical idea -- I can read up on it on Wikipedia or some other resource on the intertubes.

*Yeah, like there's a need for my observations