Cricket a game invented by the Poms that is boring, tedious, meaningless and about the same as golf where you stand around in the sun the whole day, either throwing or hitting a little ball hoping that it'll just go where you want it to.
A bit like football, all codes/varieties as well I suppose.

Try this. It's very accurate and won't help at all

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 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!

I don't understand most games and am happy about it. I rather just glans at it in British murder mysteries, doesn't have anything to do with the plot so not essential to the story.

Join the many who don’t understand it. I’m British and don’t have a clue - having said that, it’s hugely popular.

India is now the centre of world cricket - it’s a national obsession there, and has the largest and wealthiest league. It also originated T20, a faster, one day version of a game that in its ‘test’ format, lasts five days. India excels at both versions.

All I know for sure, is that the ball is ‘bowled’ (a straight arm running throw, keeping the elbow straight) toward a batsman who endeavours to hit it. The batsman is standing at one end of the ‘wicket’, a 22 yard stretch of ground, and there is another batsman standing at the other end. If he does hit the ball, and it’s not caught by the a fielder before hitting the ground, he must run to the opposite wicket. If he makes it before the ball, he scores one run. His team-mate also runs in the opposite direction - if he’s successful in getting ‘home’, he also scores a run. The two players can continue to run between the two ends, for as long as they feel they can risk it, scoring one run each for each safely completed run.

As the batsmen have now swapped places, the bowler now bowls at the second batsman.

If the ball gets past the batsman and hits the actual ’wicket’ (three wooden uprights, the stumps, with two wooden ‘bails’ across the gaps between them, one set at each end), that batsman is out, and leaves the field. Likewise, if the ball is caught by the ‘wicket keeper’ before hitting the ground, the batsman involved is out, or if it’s caught similarly by any other fielder.

This all presumes a legal bowl - the ball must strike the ground once and bounce before reaching the legal batting zone; it must bounce into the batting area; the ball must be released by the bowler before he hits the wicket mark (the start of the 22 yard stretch); the bowler’s throwing arm must be locked straight at the elbow when the ball is released. Any breaches are a foul or no-ball, and that bowl is lost from the 6 the bowler has during his turn (an ‘over&rsquo. A batsman’s ‘innings’ at the ‘stump’ last for as long as he can survive being caught or got ‘out’, so his score is theoretically limitless.

‘Automatic’ scoring. If the batsman hits the ball and it reaches the ‘boundary’ (a rough circle of rope enclosing the whole field of play - minimum dimensions apply) and hits it, before anyone from the other team touches it, that batsman scores 4 runs. He doesn’t actually have to run though. If the ball is struck over the boundary without hitting the ground beforehand, the batsman scores 6 runs, again without having to actually move.

If any fielder, or the bowler, catches the ball after it’s been struck, and before it hits the ground, the batsman is out. If the ball is caught after hitting the ground, the fielding team attempt to ‘run’ the batsman out, by having it successfully caught by one of their number in a batting area before the batsman running reaches that area.

Scoring is done by adding up the runs that each batsman scores for his team for a team total. ‘Wickets’, meaning the number of batsmen they lost in achieving that score are also counted. So, a batting team will leave the field at the end of their innings with a score like, strictly as an example, 263 for 6. That means they scored 263 runs, and 6 of the team were caught or run ‘out’.

The teams then swap roles. The team that was fielding (strangely known as the team that’s ‘out&rsquo, is now ‘in’, as they start their batting innings. The team that was ‘in’ before, batting, is now ‘out’, as they are doing the fielding and bowling.

There are 11 players in a team; when a team is out, all 11 take the field - that number includes whoever is bowling, 6 balls to an over. The batting team only has two players in at any one time. Everybody bats, but generally only a highly skilled few will bowl, dependng on when their team is in or out.

Who wins a match? Who knows? Seriously, it’s generally the team that scores the most runs. But wickets lost can be taken into consideration under some circumstances. Sometimes a match will be declared a draw, even though the teams’ scores bear no relation to each other. I understand none of this.

I probably made some errors in this, but that’s the best I can do. Hope it helps, or at least hasn’t led you to wrist-slashing. ?

Its very like baseball, except that there are only two bases and you run back and forth between them until you are out, instead of round the diamond in the same way as baseball. There being two batsman on the field all the time so the bases are always loaded. The main other difference is that the batsman has a set of stumps (sticks) behind his base, which are a target for the bowler (pitcher) to aim at, if the batsman can not defend the stumps and the bowler hits them the batsman is out. This means there are not three strikes, the batsman has to hit the ball first time.

If a batsman hits a ball, he runs the 22 yards to the other wicket and back if he can. Each length is a 'run.

In county games and test matches, each team bats twice. It's called an 'innings'. These matches can take up to five days to complete. Yes, that's right. Five days.

I'm English and I struggle with it! Teams get 'runs' instead of points. There are eleven people in each team, with the batting team having two players on and the fielding team having eleven.