Cricket to a foreign visitor.
Cricket is a strange game. I have played it for years since I was a young lad and still I find it hard to explain the game to anyone who has never seen it. I mean how can you describe a game that goes on for days, days in which there is the possibility of the game ending with no result and yet it is still as enthralling on day 5 as it was on day 1. A game that lasts for 90 overs per day in test cricket and yet somehow the one day game manages 100 overs per day and you at least get a result. A team game and yet at the same time a game where only 2 or 3 people take part at any one time and a game where it is the individual skill of one player can determine the result beyond any shadow of a doubt and yet it is still the team that is celebrated. Add to this the fact that the weather still in 2005 plays such an important part in the outcome. Not just the rain but the light and this in an age when every test ground has floodlights. How can the situation occur when with exactly the same team of players that it is fine to play under floodlights with a white ball well into the night and yet at the same time it is against regulations to play under floodlights in test cricket and so bad light stops play, surely the rules need to be changed.These are not the only problems that I face when I try to describe the game to someone who doesn't understand it but only go to show the problems that one is faced with, if we get deeper into the rules the situation gets even worse. You try explaining the LBW rule, and I've tried over a number of years to totally comprehend the absurdity of the LBW rule. Lets look at it from my point of view. I used to bowl medium pace with the new ball, never did much with it, I mean it was only village cricket Saturday league style for my local village team so we are not talking about test standard cricket. Still my main problem is that I am left handed and bowl left arm over the wicket. Now to the average person that may not sound like a huge problem but I can assure you it is. It takes away one of the methods of taking a wicket which right arm bowlers do not appreciate, nor it seems does the rule makers. How I hear you ask, well it is almost impossible to get anyone out LBW. The law clearly states that the ball has to pitch in line with the stumps and not outside the line of leg stump for the batsman to be out. Now for a left arm over bowler this is almost impossible unless you can move the ball by some considerable distance, a case that would instill doubt in the mind of the umpire and so the batsman needs to be given the benefit of any doubt, something we would all agree with. Bowling at such an angle means that any ball on a length on the stumps will miss off stump by a large margin, yet if you bowl on the same angle from right arm over the wicket it seems as if it is totally acceptable for the umpire to give the batsman out LBW, so why not for left arm over bowlers? well to do so would mean to pitch the ball outside leg stump and as any delivery outside leg stump means the batsman cannot be given out LBW then this can not happen but why is this? The rule makers argue that it would encourage negative bowling, but surely if used correctly it would improve the game, encourage better batsmen to play shots and give left handed people more of a chance in the game. We have seen how difficult it is for right arm bowlers to bowl at left handed people and how left handed batsmen have come to dominate world cricket, is this because of this rule, they feel safer due to the fact that the ball, if pitched up and to hit the stumps has to be pitched outside their leg stump and so they have less chance of being given out LBW? So surely this rule needs to be addressed, the rule makers have made it so that a certain number of overs must be bowled in a day to encourage positive results, the players themselves have responded to this and now we see test matches where to not get a result, which used to be the norm, replaced by games where one or the other side wins, and so there must be a way to ensure that negativity comes into play. I am sure it would enhance the game and even improve batting and bowling skills, whilst I agree, placing a greater strain on the umpires but with the advances in technology then this can be overcome.
I started this by asking how you explain the game of cricket to someone who has never seen it, and here i end up by looking for a rule change, a change I feel is for the better, so how does one explain cricket? Is it just a game to be understood by a few or is it a game for the masses? I hope the latter as cricket is one of the most impressive spectator sports I know.
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