Cricket (was: What's the fun in baseball?)

[bluesqueak]

 Iggy McSnurd writes:
> Just a few quick questions:
> 
> Why does the bowler throw the ball with his arm twisted the way it 
is?
> (compared to the form used in baseball... or even underhand like in
> softball...)

If you go to 
http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/cis/cricket/papers/rf.html#2
you will find more information than you want to know about the 
biomechanics of the bowling action.

However, basically, the cricket bowling action is used for its 
flexibility. It's a very accurate throw, which can be very fast (100 
mph+ is the maximum speed clocked). 

Underarm was allowed until 2000(I think) but you'd have been laughed 
off the pitch unless you were *very* good - a reasonably competent 
batsman could knock an underarm bowl all over the place [unless your 
tactic was to make them laugh so much you could bowl them out - 
there were occasional 'surprise' underarm bowls]. It is still 
technically allowed, but you have to announce beforehand that you 
intend to bowl underarm.

The cricket overarm allows for a *lot* of tricky variations, as 
well. Like the dreaded 'googly', where a spin is put on the ball - 
but for the first part of its flight, it looks like it's going to 
curve to one side of the batsman, and then it goes the other way.

> 
> Did the term "sticky wicket" come from cricket, or croquet?  (I 
> imagine it being a term like being in a "pickle" in baseball, 
> where the runner is stuck between two bases

It comes from cricket, and no, it's not getting stuck between the 
two wickets. A sticky wicket is when the pitch has both muddy and 
dry patches. This means that you can't tell where on earth the ball 
is going to bounce when it hits the ground (if it hits a dry patch, 
it will bounce, if it hits a wet patch, it will squelch and stick). 

A sticky wicket is thus a pain for batsman and fielder, but worse 
for the batsman. You can't direct the ball between two fielders 
accurately, which is what you're trying to do.
> 
> Does cricket have anything that's the equivalent of a "strike" or 
> a "foulball" in baseball?  

LBW, or Leg Before Wicket. The aim of the bowler is to knock the 
stumps off the top of the wicket. Obviously, if the batsman puts 
himself in front of the wicket, the bowler can't do that. So LBW is 
a foul, and you are out. The umpire will automatically assume the 
ball *would* have hit the wicket if you hadn't put your ruddy great 
carcass in the way.

> 
> Ok... about runs...
> 
> (wicket) ------------------------------------------->(wicket)   = 
1 run
> (wicket) <------------------------------------------ (wicket)   = 
1 run
> 
> Right?
> 

Not sure. The batsman and partner need to cross safely between 
wickets - if your diagram is showning batsman and partner changing 
wickets, then you are right, that's a run.

So you need at least two people left to bat in cricket. The end of 
the game is not when *all*  of a team are out, it's when *all but 
one* are out. The last person will usually have his score recorded 
as '54 not out' to show that they could have made more runs, but had 
no partner.

Cricket is not boring, by the way. It's simply a form of English Zen 
meditation, exported to the world ;-)

Pip!Squeak

[not a cricketer, but the daughter of a Cricket Umpire.]