You know, I read a significant amount about sports daily. I am such a fan of sports that I recently decided to reach out and try to get into other sports that I previously would have little interest in.
Seeing as how the 2011 Cricket World Cup just finished recently, I thought I'd try to give it a chance. And I've got to say, I don't get it. Seriously. Look, I understand that it is incredibly popular around the world. I guess you can thank ESPN for the American disinterest in such a sport. Now, I understand the disinterest in some sports for Americans. We Americans (stereotypically, of course) need a lot of excitement. Soccer doesn't do it because it's "too low scoring". Well, cricket certainly takes the opposite route here. The final score of the final game was India 277/4-Sri Lanka 274/6. First of all, that's a lot of points, or runs, or wickets, or whatever the general term is for scoring. Second of all, what?
So, seeing as how the score alone confused me, I thought I would try to learn some more about the rules and scoring. It may seem ridiculous at first glance, but I should at least give this cricket thing a chance.
So, I looked around online. Wikipedia, Google, YouTube... The usual suspects. And let me tell you... After a few hours of watching and reading, I understand one thing about cricket... I still don't get it. It's like some weird combination of baseball and milk-bottle toppling at the carnival, except sometimes you can cheat and just knock over the milk bottles with your hands.
In all honesty, I've gotten a the main points down... I think. 2 batters are up at once, but only 1 batter hits at a time. The "bowler" (or in baseball terms, pitcher) throws (or bowls, whatever) the ball towards the batter who is hitting. The bowler is attempting to get the ball passed the batter and hit the wickets behind him. The batter is trying to hit the ball into play. If he does, the 2 batters run to the other side. If they make it before the other team gets the ball back to the middle of the field and hits a wicket, that team scores a point. They can continue to run back and forth if they so choose, but are risking being put out.
That's about all I get. I keep hearing how there are 2 different styles. One involves playing in a way that is similar to innings in a baseball game. The other can take multiple days to complete... Which makes me wonder how anyone can be a fan of that style. "Hey, I've got tickets to the game this Saturday... and maybe Sunday... and possibly until Wednesday... Want to go?"
Certainly the sport is interesting. It seems strange to me that a team's coach could be like "well, we're down to the end of the game, and we're down by 40, but there's still hope!" Also, how do fans get excited when their team scores? I find it hard enough in basketball to get excited about every basket, and they're only scoring up to 100 in most games. I feel like after the 200th point, my excitement level would drop off significantly. It seems more exciting to pay attention to the defense. It's one of the few games I have seen where the defense is more exciting, simply because scoring is too easy.
Regardless, I plan on watching a full game in the near future. Since I'm here in the good ol' United States, finding a game to watch isn't easy... But I'll get around to it. Expect a post in the future with my findings.
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