Pluck's Very Simplified Guide to Cricket

Just as diehard baseball fans delight in the minutiae of box scores and infield fly rules, so do cricket followers revel in the obscure and byzantine corpus of regulations that govern their sport. We've tried to boil the game down to its essentials for those of us who would like to follow along with our Commonwealth friends. Nonetheless, if you see something we've printed in error, please don't hesitate to clarify- perhaps the only thing more challenging than the game itself is understanding how to play it.

1. Cricket teams are comprised of 11 players each, who play on an oval-shaped field with a pitch (essentially a dry strip of dirt) in the center. For explanation's sake, let's name the first team Team A and the second Team B.

2. On the pitch, there is one bowler from Team A, who throws the ball. There is a batsman from Team B who faces him and hits the ball. Behind the bowler, there is another batsman from Team B, who is there to help score runs (more on that later.)

3. When the bowler throws the ball to the batsman facing him, the batsman hits the ball away from the pitch onto the field. On the perimeter of the field are the remaining members of Team A, who will attempt to catch the ball and strike the batsman out.

4. Until the batsman is struck out, he can continue to score runs by running to the opposite end of the pitch and trading places with his fellow batsman, who runs to the first batsman's end of the pitch. In order to complete a run, the hitting batsman must cross the crease (line) on one end of the pitch, while the non-hitting batsman must reach the other end of the pitch. Runs can also be scored in several other ways, such as hitting a ball up to or past the outer limit of play.

5. The batsman can be struck out in a variety of ways, including having his stumps and bails (the wooden sticks behind him, collectively known as a 'wicket') hit by a throw or having the ball he has hit to the field caught by an outfielder without a bounce (as in baseball).

6. Cricket is often played in large time increments- from one day to several. Team A and Team B each have one inning in which to score as many runs as possible, with each inning lasting until 10 batsmen are struck out. Each bowler throws six balls, which is known as an 'over'. Depending on the type of match, bowlers can sometimes be restricted on the number of overs they can bowl in a game.