Most amazing achievement 99.9% of Americans won't care about

[gusmahler]

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Those guys were all specialist batsmen (think outfielders), this guy is a specialist bowler (pitcher). Plus, this guys highest score in any form of cricket was a 90 in a grade cricket match, that's like having 5 HR in a year in an independent league and going and hitting 4 HR in a game in the majors.


[/ QUOTE ]

So the dude is on 'roids?

[mother_brain]

i coulda sworn this was gonna be about soccer.

[Quadstriker]

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i coulda sworn this was gonna be about Canada.

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[JaredL]

It should be pointed out that
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The players leave the field again at about 4 for tea.

They then resume play till about 6 oclcik.

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Would translate in the US as "The players leave the field again at about 4 for dinner. They then resume play 'till about 6 o'clock." I think this is one thing that confuses Americans. The tea break is a break to eat as they've been playing all day. Since noone (that I know of at least) in the US refers to the last meal of the day as tea it feels like the players are taking a break for a "spot of tea."

I'm guessing most here know that but you will see comedians say stuff like "I can't get behind a sport where the players take a break in the middle to drink tea."

[TheRover]

Cricket is the only sport I've ever seen where I didn't know what was going on pretty quickly. I've seen plenty of highlights on Sky Sports News and I still have absolutely no clue what the [censored] is going on.

[Lori]

Cricket is baseball backwards. Instead of getting people out for hours on end until someone smacks the ball a long way, the batsmen smack the ball a long way all day until someone gets them out.

Lori

[Matt Williams]

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So I said, "What is this, the T-interval??"

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

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So THAT's why Kramer was having a High Tea with Mr. Newman at Kramerica Industries!

[jstnrgrs]

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Cricket is a great game to play, as it is one of the few games one can play while drinking a can of lager, or smoking a cigarett (obviosuly, only while you are fielding).

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Sounds kind of like softball.

Umpire: Okay, lets go over the rules. You can't leave first until you chug a beer. Any man scoring has to chug a beer. You have to chug a beer at the top of all odd numbered innings. Oh!, and the fourth inning is the beer inning.

Police Chief Wigam: Hey! We know how to play softball.

[DCWildcat]

Most of the people I've met in New Zealand share the same sentiment as I do during cricket: Why the [censored] would anyone want to watch this [censored]?

[skp]

The tea break in test cricket is aptly named as traditionally, it is tea that the players have (along with cucumber sandwiches for reasons unknown to me). A test match has 6 hours of play in a given day - 3 sessions of 2 hours each. There is a 40 minute lunch break after session 1, and a 20 minute tea break after session 2. A test match is scheduled for 5 days meaning that there is a maximum of 30 hours of play. It is not unccommon for a match to be drawn after the 30 hours of play. Imagine that: Play for 30 hours and have no victor. Unthinkable to Americans. Having said that, draws can often be "gripping" to many cricket watchers (i.e. as one team does its best to "run out the clock" without being dismissed or alternatively, tries to get to the required wining target but runs out of time before they get there).

A faster version of cricket is a 1 day match where there is no tea break. Each team has 50 overs (which amounts to 300 balls) bowled at them to score runs without losing 10 wickets (losing a wicket means having one of your players given out). There is normally about 7 hours of play not counting a 40 minute lunch break. The format of the game lends itself to more entertaining cricket as batsmen are forced to keep the run rate going rather than simply waiting for the bad ball to score runs from as they do in test cricket.

There are no draws in one day cricket. A tie however is possible though extremely rare. Cricket's World Cup tournaments use this format. This tourney happens every 4 years and the next one is scheduled for Spring '07 in the Caribbean. The Aussies have won the last two World Cups and are big favorites yet again.

The fastest version of cricket is something called 20/20 cricket wherein each team tries to get as many runs as possible in the 20 overs that are bowled to them by the opposition. Therefore, the object is to score more runs than the other team in the 120 balls that are bowled to you (of course you also need to ensure that your team doesn't lose 10 wickets before those 120 balls are bowled). These matches shock purists as the batsmen are out there just slogging in an effort to score runs rather than playing proper cricketing shots. These 20/20 matches probably last only about 3 to 3.5 hours which...alas...means no cucumber sandwiches....damn.