Cricket Doodle!

[CLICK HERE] to play!

Today's Google Doodle is pretty great. It's in celebration of the ICC 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup. It's also a mini-game where you control crickets playing cricket!

The doodle inspired me to explain the rules of cricket to my son, who is now convinced that this is why we invented baseball.

I've seen many variations of the following explanation. This is my version:

The Rules of Cricket
(as related by an American)

There are eleven players on a team.
The twelfth player doesn't play, unless a player who plays doesn't play. Even then he doesn't really play. He can't bowl, bat, wicket-keep, or captain the team. Basically, the twelfth player is a fifth wheel.
There are two innings.
In each inning, one team is out and the other team is in.
The team that is out consists of a bowler, a wicket-keeper, and a bunch of blokes who look lost.
The team that is in plays two batsmen at a time: the striker, and the tosser who's waiting around to be the striker.
The bowler (who is out) tries to get the batsmen (who are in) out.
When the bowler bowls, he pitches the ball. That is, his hand goes over, not under.
Even though the bowler pitches, his pitch isn't a pitch. The ground is a pitch. So he pitches at the pitch.
That's too confusing even for a Brit, so screw it... he bowls.

When the bowler has bowled six balls, it's an over.
The game is not over when the over is over. When the over is over, the bowler's not the bowler. Another bowler bowls another over.
There is no limit to the number of overs before the game is over. Until it's over it's overs over and over.

There are many ways to get the batsman out.
He can be bowled out.
He can be run out.
He can be caught out.
He can be stumped out.
He can accidentally out himself. It happens... they're British.
He can be LBW. This means the bowler hit him with the ball. In baseball, you'd take a base. In cricket you get the hell out.
There are other ways to be out, but nobody cares.

The batsman holds a paddle, not a bat. But "paddleball" was taken.
The batsman tries to keep the bowler from breaking a wicked wicket, and bat the ball out.
If the ball goes full out, that's 6 runs, and nobody runs.
If the ball is in before it's out, that's 4 runs, no matter how much they run.
If the ball is in and stays in, then the players run if they want to.
If the players don't want to run, they stop running.

When a batsman is out, he goes out. Another player who's in comes in until they're out.
When 10 players are out, they're all out, even the one who's not out, and the one who's not playing.
When they're all out, they go out, except the one who's not playing unless he's playing.
When everyone has gone out, that's the ending of the innings, but not the last of the innings.
Then they do it again until all the players who went in go out.
When all the players who were in are out and the players who were out go in and come out again, then the game is over. No more overs.

*shrug*... Nobody says cricket is easy to comprehend... that's why it's called a "TEST"!

You have to watch quite a few games to learn the ins and outs. But it does seem to me that in the 1600s or thereabouts, some Englishman invented Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" routine, and all of his mates shouted, "Oy! I'll play that!"

--==//oOo\\==--

Now that the joke's over, I've found this on YouTube. It's probably the clearest and most concise explanation of the rules I've seen.  (a more complete explanation is on Wikipedia)


In the video you'll see some clips where the teams are wearing team colors, and others where the teams are wearing all white. If they're wearing white, it's probably a "test match", which is what I describe above. But there are shorter matches involving a limited number of 'overs', and in these the players commonly wear colors.

--==//oOo\\==--

And finally, here's a reminder that all of Google's old doodles are available at https://www.google.com/doodles, including the playable Google Pacman!

[CLICK HERE] to play!