The Intrigue of Cricket: Attempting the Impossible
Attempting the Impossible
[Image: the ‘Gabba. Source]
Publication date: 2021-12-10
Update: 2021-12-12. The location of the origins of the Ashes was erroneously reported as being in Australia. It was after a game at The Oval, London. This has been corrected, and an image of the advertisement in The Sporting Times which created the name included.
Against greater wisdom this article will attempt to entice you, dear reader, into the inner sanctum of the lovers of Test Cricket. The quirky terms and fiddly rules of the game will be ignored, bypassed, or if need be, explained in brief readable form.
But, why now, you ask!? We'll that's a story in itself as is so often the case for this centuries old game. The key word for the timing of this article is "Ashes".
In some senses Cricket is just another "ball on stick" game, like tennis. But, it is also a team game, and a team game played over multiple days in its more traditional forms. The game now has many forms. More recent forms limit the game’s duration by placing a fixed limit on the number of times that ball is delivered to the bat. This article shall focus on the older forms, where that game’s duration is limited in days of play. Funnily enough, there was a period in the game’s history where even that limit was removed, the “Timeless Tests”.
A Crash Course in Cricket
The game is played on an oval, like a village green, with a marked or agreed boundary. In the middle is a linear strip of trimmed grass which at each end have three vertical sticks (stumps) with two little sticks (bails) sitting atop them and connecting them.
[Image: Source. Here can be seen the pitch, the trimmed grass strip, and the collection of sticks, the three stumps and two bails atop at each end. On this strip the key action of the game is enacted.]
The trimmed grass strip is called the “pitch” and each of the stick collections is a “wicket”, or "the stumps". Each team of 11 players, with a "helper" called "12th man", tries to make points, known as "runs", by hitting the ball into the field. There are two people with bat in hand, one at each end of the pitch, and the other team are "in the field", one of whom is delivering the ball.
Be a bird in a tree on the edge of the oval watching.
[Image: this shot is of the Brockton Point ground in Vancouver, Canada. There are two people in black trousers, the umpires. We’ll come to them soon. In the middle, on the pitch, can be seen one of the two batters. Around the pitch stand the fielders of the fielding team.]
Two people with funny things (pads) on their legs and holding wooden clubs (bats) are standing at the ends of the trimmed grass pitch. Eleven other people are standing in strange positions around the oval and one of them has the ball in hand. This person runs or walks to one end of the pitch and "throws" the ball to the person with a bat at the other end of the pitch. The person with the bat chooses to do nothing or try to hit the ball with the bat. The person "batting" may make a mistake, and if so, must leave the field so that the next person in their team of eleven can join the other "batter" who remains at the other end of the pitch. We'll get to "mistakes" in a moment. But, if the batter decides to hit the ball, and it looks like both they and the other batter (at the other end of the pitch) can run to the other end, thus exchanging places, a run (point) is scored! If the ball is well hit this may be possible multiple times, with both batters exchanging positions back and forth as they complete multiple runs. If the ball is hit so well that it reaches the boundary mark, four runs are automatically added, and running is unnecessary. If the ball is hit in the air over the boundary, six runs are given automatically.
Making Mistakes
As for mistakes, they are (briefly) if the ball hits the sticks (stumps) and one or both of the little sticks (bails) atop the vertical sticks (stumps) falls off, this is mistake one. You are bowled! The person delivering the ball (the "bowler") has broken your stumps, which you must not allow. There is a corollary rule, which is that if you are hit by the ball but your bat is not involved, AND the ball would have broken the stumps, then that is sort of "cheating" because the only way allowed for you to "defend" your stumps is to hit the ball with the bat. This is called "leg before wicket" and abbreviated to "lbw". The next “wicket was broken” dismissal is that the batter receiving the ball accidentally breaks the stumps behind them. One can swing one’s bat back and hit the stumps, or fall over onto them. This is a “hit wicket” mistake. Finally, hitting the ball in the air is a risk. If it is caught by a member of the fielding team before hitting the ground and the fielder has demonstrated control over the caught ball, one is out “caught”.
Apart from the "lbw" mistake, which is a bit weird, the rest are pretty clear. But, lets say a batter hits the ball and the two batters start running between the ends of the pitch. How does the fielding team (the team in the field) stop them? Now we meet two very important lines drawn across the pitch "in front of" each of the wickets. (Please scroll up to the “pitch” picture above in which the stumps, and lines around the pitch in front of them, are clearly shown.) Each of the two “horizontal” (transverse) lines in front of the stumps are a "crease" and define a position of safety for the batter. If the batter has any part of their body, or their bat when it is connected with their body, on the ground "behind" this line (meaning away from the middle of the pitch, or towards the stumps) they are "safe". But, this safety is about what happens after the ball is bowled. It is no protection from being "bowled" when the bowler delivers the ball. Thus, if the batters are running after the delivered ball is struck, and either is not behind their "crease" the stumps can be broken by the fielding team with the ball by throwing at the stumps or by breaking them with the ball in hand, and the batter who was running towards that crease has made the next great mistake: "run out"! Thus, the batters take a risk in attempting to score a run (point).
There is a variant of "run out" whereby the fielding person positioned behind the stumps to gather the ball from the bowler if the batter chooses not to hit it (the "wicketkeeper") breaks the stumps when the batter is not "safe" (has no part of body ... bat ... behind the crease). The specialist role of “wicketkeeper” is not required by the rules of the game at all, but is so obviously needed, that every team ensures that someone takes this role. The ‘keeper is allowed to wear a set of regulated gloves to protect their hands as they gather ball after ball of deliveries from the bowler, which the batter chooses not to hit.
There are some more obscure mistakes. Being a complete arsehole is a mistake. Touching, in any way deliberately, the ball when you are batting is a mistake. There are two customs hidden here. The pitch "belongs" to the batting team, and the fielding team can't run all over it or damage it. Equivalently, the ball “belongs” to the fielding team and batters are not allowed to touch it deliberately, except with their bats.
But, that's about it for the mistake types: Bowled, LBW, Hit Wicket, Caught, Run out, or the "wicketkeeper" variant Stumped. With the extremely rare "handling the ball" and "being an arsehole" dismissals not requiring much attention.
By avoiding these mistakes, and hitting the ball and running between the ends of the pitch the batting team can make their runs (points). Each time a mistake is made, the batter must leave the field and the batting team's next batter comes in to partner with the other batter who remains at the pitch. The batter who made the mistake is “out”.
In this way, ten partnerships of batters can make runs together until ten mistakes (also called wickets, just to confuse everybody) have been made. The last sole batter is left in the middle and is "not out". No more runs can be made, for there is no partner with which to bat and run. At this point the whole "batting team" is out, and the accumulated total of the runs made across all the partnerships are totaled for the batting team's score. This is an "innings".
Explaining Cricket to a Foreigner
Cricket afficiandos are also often people who love playing with language, and the language of cricket is so involved and convoluted that it lends itself to many a pun. A batter, when batting is “in” until they may a mistake, and then are “out”. A team is “out” on the field, and all of the partnerships of a batting team construct an “innings”. You can see where this is going. A classic play on this, as an “explanation of cricket” is as follows:
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.
As a new comer to cricket, one is not meant to understand all of this. It is transcribed here to show the playful side of cricket appreciation.
Playing for Time
Before we get to looking at this whole crazy escapade from the perspective of the fielding team, it is important to understand the temporal component of the game. Once one team has batted while the other fields and 10 mistakes (wickets) have occurred, they swap so that the other team can try to out score the first batting team. Because its a British game, they do this twice (except under special circumstances which we shall completely not follow on about). Thus, four days is a reasonable time. A day for each team to bat, twice, but with the pressure for the fielding team to manufacture those ten wickets (mistakes). It is in the nature of that "manufacture" wherein lies the heart and beauty of cricket.
Scoring and Winning
Cricket has a most bizarre scoring system. In a points game, things are simple: win, lose or draw if the points are equal. This is the same in cricket, except, and this is a very important "except", if the last batting team has not been forced to complete their last innings, and thus having made 20 mistakes, they can escape with a draw when time elapses. It is this mechanic which extends the pressure from the action level at the pitch to the match level. There is a constant tension between runs (points), wickets (mistakes) and time across all four innings of a match.
The fielding team wishes to force ten wickets (mistakes) from the batting team, and do so for the least amount of runs (points) scored. Thus, they can then bat, make more runs and put pressure on the other team.
Perhaps a trivial example will help to clarify the challenge. At the end of day 1 Team A is dismissed (made 10 “mistakes”) for 200 runs. On day 2, team B is also dismissed at the end of the day, but for 250 runs. Half of the match is gone in both time and innings, but team B have a 50 run lead. Team A bat for day 3 and are dismissed at the end of the day for 150 runs. Thus, their total score is 350, but Team A already have 250 and thus need only 101 to win. But, overnight there has been rain, and the pitch has been damaged by all of the running for runs making things easier for Team A’s bowlers. Two thirds of the way through day 4, team B has only 45 runs of the 101 they need, and they’ve made 5 mistakes (lost 5 wickets). They are in a bit of a quandary. Their last 5 batters are not as good as their first 5 and although the number of runs is not too big, if they “go for it” they risk losing more wickets and being dismissed in their final innings with not enough points. Thus, they would lose. Or, they can try to “stay in” and not make mistakes (lose wickets) and achieve a draw. This conundrum is fairly obvious late in a game, but constantly evident to a keen observer all of the way through a match. This is the “match level” analysis of the game, as opposed to the “battle on the pitch” level between bowler and batter.
Bowling
We spoke of the "bowler" who is "delivering the ball" to the batter at the other end of the pitch. These deliveries come in sets, or collections. The modern version of cricket uses a collection of 6 balls delivered by one bowler. Each set is called an "over", because the two other very important people who have as yet remained unnamed use this word to signal the end of the collection of deliveries (its) "over". These two people are the umpires whose job it is to adjudicate "mistakes" of all kinds, not just "wickets". Bowlers can make mistakes too, including such errors as “no ball” and “wide” which shall be bypassed for brevity. It is the umpires’ job to adjudicate all of these “mistakes” by either team.
As for the bowling, it switches from one end of the pitch to the other at the end of each over, without exception. This is an axiomatic metronome of cricket, the changing of the end of the pitch from which the next bowler bowls. No bowler is allowed to directly move from bowling from one end of the pitch to the other at the end of an "over". There must be a different bowler at the other end for that next over. This prevents a single, very skilled bowler from controlling a match.
What is a bowler trying to do? That, largely, is a captain's choice, but it amounts to one of two things; force a mistake (and achieve a wicket) or prevent runs (points) being scored. At a micro level, as each ball is bowled, this is the battle of cricket between the bowler and the batter who is "facing" (receiving the delivery).
How are mistakes forced? Aaaaaah, this is the art of bowling. So much of cricket talk, and history even, is focused on the prowess of batters. There is another side of that coin, the prowess of bowlers.
On the defensive side, the prevention of the scoring of runs, is a collaboration between the fielding team's captain's choice of where the team members stand in the field, and the skill of the bowler. By the fielders being positioned dominantly on one side of the field and the bowler delivering the ball to that side of the pitch it is very difficult for the batter to hit the ball into a place where there are few fielders and thus enough time for a run to be completed before the ball can be delivered back to break the stumps of a "not safe" batter who is running. To put it another way, the batter wants to hit the ball where the fielding team are not, which gives the time for runs to be scored. The bowler and fielding captain can make this very difficult, and thus slow the scoring. This will not progress the game as 20 wickets must be taken to win. But, sometimes, slowing the scoring rate is an effective strategy to place pressure on a batting team which can then induce mistakes. Cricket is complicated.
The real accolades for bowlers are the creation of the wickets. But, how does one do that? By tricking the batter, of course! A batter is trained to the level of reflex, and instinct even, to watch the ball and the path it is taking to predict where it will land on the pitch and then how it is likely to continue. Any variation from this reflexive judgement can produce different mistakes.
The Ball
[Image: Source. A cricket ball showing the stitching around the the seam, and the raised seam itself.]
In hyper-brief detail, the cricket ball has a seam, a circumference of stitches which produce a circle of slightly raised leather. This can be used in three general ways; seam, swing and spin. Seam is using the stitched area and the raised ridge to cause the ball to move to the left or right as it bounces off the pitch. Swing is to the use the raised area as a type of rudder, or variations in smoothness between the two sides of the ball as it moves through the air, causing lateral movement as the ball moves in the air. Spin is to cause the ball to rotate quickly in a lateral direction as it moves down the pitch so that when it lands on the pitch the rotations cause the ball to deviate off the pitch towards the direction of rotation imparted. There is much subtly in all of this, and two of the techniques can be combined by an expert bowler to devastating effect. The two most "impossible to play" deliveries are spin using a variant of "swing" to drift the ball in the air one way, and then the spin moving the ball in the other off the pitch, or swing moving the ball one way in the air one way and seam moving the ball in the other off the pitch. Only the best of the best can do this magic, and magic it is.
[Video: if one watches the ball, it moves in the air to the right, and then after landing sharply moves back to the left. This is a classic example of spinning drift (which is not really swing) combined with the spin with each movement occurring in opposite directions.]
[Video: here we have the swing and seam perfection. Wait for the slow motion replay. Watch the ball swing back towards the center line of the pitch and then when it bounces off it move the other way. There is an equivalently brilliant delivery by James Anderson against Michael Clarke that I tried to find, but it eluded me.]
In both cases, you have top class bowlers against top class batters. Sometimes luck is enough, but if you want to “manufacture” an error from a top class batsman, it takes this level of bowling skill.
There is another tactic for bowlers. The cricket ball has a fixed weight (or mass to be more precise) of 156 to 163 grams. When bowled at 150 Km/h that really hurts if it hits you, and as a batter you have only two options. You either use your bat to play or deflect the ball, or you get out of the way. When this aggressive bowling technique is used, the ball is sent into the pitch "short" so that it rises to the upper chest or shoulder level of the standing batter. Thus, deflections go into the air and one can be caught. A skilled batter can choose between avoiding the delivery and playing it. Thus, there is a risk for the bowler too. It is quite a battle.
All of this explains whey batters are allowed to wear protective equipment. Few people have died playing the game due to this aggressive bowling method, but some have. A key case was the death of Phillip Hughes, which produced an outpouring of concern and respect which had not previously been seen.
Up Periscope: Test Cricket
The four day version of cricket is generally called "First Class" cricket and is played between counties in Great Britain, or states in Australia (and other regional authorities in other countries like India, South Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere). This "first class" cricket is the top level of the national game in each country. But, international matches get five days instead of four, just to rub it in. This is Test Cricket. While there are subtle things like "playing conditions" (which means agreed rules for the matches) which vary, the core rules of first class cricket carry over into Test Cricket. The difference is the time. Test Cricket is a bit brutal. There are NO substitutes (except for fielding). As a player you sign up for five days of play, and without you, your team is down a player.
Two countries have been playing Test Cricket longer than any others. They are England (including Wales, lets not forget the Welsh) and Australia. The British at the height of their Empire visited Australia with a "national" team to play some of this "Test Cricket" and invited a Australian teams to come to England to compete.
Blow me down, England lost a game against the colonials during one of these early visits! So shocking was this that some of the bails (the little wooden “pegs” sitting between the stumps) was burned, their ashes put in a tiny little urn and a classified's post put in The Sporting Times newspaper declaring the "death of English cricket".
Thus, were the Ashes born, a perpetual trophy for dominance on the crazy field of cricket between the British Empire and one of its colonial outposts. Funnily enough, many other colonial outposts have forced the Empire's home to admit defeat on said crazy field for many decades. But, call them masochists or just good sports, the Brits keep turning up for the contests.
Of these rivalries between "mother England" and its colonies, the one with Australia is the longest, and as mentioned, has a name "The Ashes". Its a beautifully constructed competition with a "home and away" contest for every two to three years. The current total score has Australia in the lead, by a tad, which pleases us "colonials" to no end.
The current incarnation has arrived for us all to enjoy.
Modern Ashes
In recent memory, the first of the five Tests of an Ashes series played in Australia have been played at the Woolloongabba ground in Queensland, known universally as the 'Gabba. Following a series of unbroken victories against all comers the 'Gabba earned a new name, the 'Gabbatoir. Non-Ashes series began there too, and it was the venue for Australia to most often defeat their visiting rival. For England, they haven't won there in 35 years, though they have achieved a draw or two. Which is harder, winning the Ashes in Australia, or winning at the ‘Gabbatoir? History shows it is the latter.
Descriptions of rules and limits on players and their actions in the game have been given. But, cricket being cricket there are also rules on the ground's staff too! The summary is that the grounds staff can do whatever the hell they want up until the game starts (except that they have to mark the "crease" and other lines, like the boundary, clearly and with some precision). Thereafter, the grounds staff are severely limited on what they may do. Actually, the team currently batting has more control over their action. Whatever the case, the global grounds staffs are committed to their ground and its prestige, but also subservient to the local authority and the national "cricket board", while the national cricket board is subservient to the money that comes from the rights to televise the game. The end result is that a ground, and particularly pitch, which does not either favour the batting or bowling team is best, but it should have within it the ability to evolve over the 5 days in a way which benefits the strengths of the local national team. I rate this subtle pitch doctoring up there with bowling as one of the finer arts of cricket, but that's another story.
Luckily for the 'Gabba's ground staff they have a natural treasure which has been preserved for many, many a decade by generations of grounds staff. The treasure is the "bounce". The soil and the grass are compact and networked. It produces a surface upon which the ball when delivered into the pitch will bounce more that just about anywhere else in the world (excepting perhaps the old WACA ground). Now, the Australian team is composed of cricketers from the Australian states, and they have played on this ground many a time and know this bounce. This is equivalently not true for all visitors, except the odd few who may have played a little in Australia's domestic competition. The other factor is the climate. While not a big issue for southern Indians or Caribbean players, it is quite a shock for the Brits or South Africans. These are the natural defenses of the 'Gabbatoir; bounce, heat and moisture.
Ashes 2021
Once again the current Ashes has begun at the Woolloongabba ground. Due to pandemomoniacal policies and the visiting team's plans, Team England entered the coliseum 'Gabba with little match practice and a very strange selection of their bowling attack, omitting both of their most experienced strike bowlers. One the first day a coin is tossed to decide which team will choose who bats first. England won the toss and had the choice. They chose to bat under heavy skies on a pitch with a bit of green on it.
What's this "green on it" thing? Well, it goes with the skies. It creates moisture in the air at the ground level, and that increases that "swing" skill mentioned earlier. Overcast skies and a greener pitch make a swing bowler rub their hands together.
The first day ends with England having made 10 "mistakes" (losing 10 wickets) for the paltry score of 147 runs for their first "innings". At this point the brewing storm rolls in and its so dark that no more play is possible, though there was a third of the day's potential play remaining. To put 147 in context, it is significantly better than cataclysmic, and slightly better than "into the life boats". Australia's bowlers (the "bowling attack") ripped them apart. Due to a boring but inevitable public harangue over completely inappropriate behaviour by Australia's previous captain, a new one had been installed. The new captain, Patrick Cummins, is a bowler, which is rare in cricket because the people who run cricket are largely batsman. The justification is that "batsman have more time to think" (as a captain), when in reality, batsman spend their most important time not thinking but using reflexes, whereas bowlers spend much time thinking about their strategies to create the "mistakes".
Whatever the case, the new "bowling" captain's "bowlers" ripped the shit out of England for bugger all, and didn’t have to bat in the dying light of the first day.
To everyone's great delight the next day was bright sunshine and the cricket continued.
The day ends with Australia on 7 "mistakes" for the points of 343, meaning that they were 196 runs ahead of the poor visitors with still a few "mistakes" to be made and points to be added before both sides exchange positions and the second part of the innings swaps began!
But what does it mean!??? Not much, in the grand scheme of things, but for the match it means that England (and Wales) are in a deep patch of doo-doo. See, if Australia decided to say, okay we're done for this innings (that's called "declaring" in cricket speak), England would need to score 196 runs before making 10 mistakes or they lose. But, even if they do that, Australia get to play their last innings (10 mistakes/wickets) to pass whatever meager total England post after 196. It is the combined totals of both innings that is the final determinant.
Yeah. Not good for England.
But, very good for the new Australian captain and his team, especially Mr. Travis Head. See, early in the day, things were tricky. England had the new ball (which the fielding team get at the start of each innings, and can choose after 80 overs using each new ball) and that new ball has a fresh seam and stitches and all fun can be had by the bowling attack. But the Australian batsman knew this problem, and did what one should; be bloody careful. Two of them made a great partnership and took Australia past England's pitiful 147. Then some trouble ensued, as England sought to recover the game. But, then arrives Mr. Head who says "naaaaa I don't think so" and scores so many runs so quickly that its all over bar the shouting.
Cricket is a beautiful, beguiling and bewildering game. It is as predictable as the tides and as unpredictable as the weather all at once.
PS
England are currently fighting back! They have 2/220 in their second innings and may yet make a game of it. Its Test Cricket, you never really know.
Sources
Laws of Cricket, Marylebone Cricket Club
The Ashes, Wikipedia
List of Ashes series, Wikipedia
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