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Cricket: My hobby

I love cricket! Absolutely adore it! Why ? Because it is one of the biggest pleasures in life with your trousers on. It is a different game - much more relaxed as the players have time for tea and lunch but also a very intelligent and interesting one which is why it is often criticised for being a sport for lazy people and hypocrites. Absolute rubbish, isn't it? Anyway, although I wouldn't like to bore you with the weird rules of this magnificent game (if you already know it). However, just in case you haven't a clue about the game: there are eleven players on each team and three main aspects of the game are dominating batting, busy bowling and laborious fielding - it is a big ask I tell you. Both sides have to bat and the team which gets the most runs wins the game. I know the sentence probably doesn't make sense to you so I would explain in a bit more detail but not in my words but in the words of my cricket coach.

"Cricket is a game in which you have two sides, one out on the field, and the other in. Each man in the side that's in goes out and when he is out, he comes in, and the next man goes out until he is out and then he comes in. When the side that's in is all out, the side that has been out goes in, and the side that was in goes out and tries to get out the side that goes in. Sometimes you get men still in and not out when thw side that is in is finally out. When both sides have been in and out, including those not out yet no longer in, that is the end of the game."

Bravo! Doesn't that help in the understanding of the game ? Of course it doesn't. You readers probably think I am some sort of a fool. I'll make it a lot simpler this time, I promise.

A cricket team consists of eleven players, or cricketers or simply lazy men as the game's critics call them. At the start of a game, the decision over which of the two teams will get the right to choose to bat or to bowl and field is made at the flick of a coin. Whichever team bats is said to be "in" and the whole idea is to score runs in the process of defending the wicket while the other team attempts to get each of the team members "out" to get their turn to bat and go "in". There are many ways bowlers of the bowling team can get the batters of the opposition team out. The batsman guards his wickets as the bowler attempts to hit them to get him out. When the batsman fails to guard his wicket and the ball knocks off the bail and if possible the set of stumps, the Batsman is rendered "bowled out" and obviously he is a dead duck. For a fast bowler, there can't be a better site than that - the three pale willow sticks or stumps cadaverously shattered on the cinnamon brown cricket strip or pitch.

Nevertheless, there are several other ways that a batsman can be dismissed from the game. The most common way batsmen get out is by getting caught by the fielders of the opposition as he is in the process of hitting the ball in the gaps between them so he can run while they chase the ball like pet dogs. Many batsmen who are chubby and have problems in running often find themselves in a situation when they get run out. This method of dismissal is when the batsman fails to reach the other end of the pitch while running to score runs and the bails are knocked off by a member of the opposing team before he reaches. If a batsman tries to use his pads to deflect a bowl aimed to crash on to his waiting stumps, he can be given out LBW - leg before wicket.

The decision to declare him out or not out can only be made by the Umpire who stands directly in front of the batsman and judges whether the bowl was going to hit the stumps when it made contact with the batman's leg, sorry, not the leg, his pads. A hit on the leg or thereabout would probably break the poor batman's let as cricket ball is a very hard object. Unsurprisingly, a cricket umpire has to be as sober as a judge as there are many times when the bowler invariably appeals to him for a LBW decision or a "caught behind" by shouting at his face "HOWWSSSSSAATT" which means something like "How does that look to you Umpire - is he out". These appeals are normally ignored by the umpires as they more often than not false and fake but are elements which make the game of cricket exciting to watch causing tension in the dressing room of the batting side, generating thrill and hope amongst the bowing side as well as providing sheer entertainment for the crowd and in international matches - for the millions glued to their television screens.
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Nonetheless, if the umpire does think that the appeal is genuine and that the bowl would surely have bombarded the stumps had the batsman's leg not been in the way, he would stick his finger up at the batsman to indicate, "sorry mate, that was going to hit your wickets". In other words, he was out. Obviously, he wouldn't stick up his middle finger up at the batsman to count as an offence and having his umpiring fee cancelled but his index finger which is how it has always been through the cricket tradition.

Finally, a ...

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