Word: cricketer
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...problem now facing you, gentle reader, is to grasp the elementary principles of the game of cricket. Cricket differs from baseball in several fundamental respects. In the first place, the batsman can hit to all sides of him, instead of only forward as in baseball. There is no such thing as a foul ball in cricket; play can take place in all 360 degrees around the batsman. This naturally makes for more fluid play: the batsman uses a far greater variety of strokes than in baseball because he can hit in any direction, and the fielders have to cover more...
...next peculiarity of cricket is the wicket, which is composed of three vertical stumps (sticks of wood) and two little bails which are balanced on top of the stumps. The batsman stands in front of the wicket, and protects it--tries to prevent the bowler from bowling the ball past him and knocking down the stumps and bails. If his wicket is knocked down, the batsman is "bowled out," which is roughly equivalent to being struck...
Possibly the most peculiar thing about cricket (to the uninitiated) is the fact that there are two wickets and two batsmen. This is as if there were two home plates, 22 yards apart and facing each other. The method of scoring is simple, but experience has shown that the American public is singularly dense on this subject, so I will write with care. After the batsman has hit the ball, he has the option of running up to the bowler's end while the batsman there runs down to take his place. Each completed exchange scores...
This last point will have suggested a further noticeable difference between cricket and baseball--the sixes of the scores. In inter-country cricket (equivalent to major league baseball) an average score would be, say, 580 to 517. In order to have time to do all this lavish scoring, the teams are obliged to play three-day matches, six hours a day (not counting the tea interval and pauses for the inevitable English rain showers...
...Cricket further differs from baseball in that the teams bat straight through their lineups in an innings (always spelled with an "s"). The fielding team stays out on the field, faultlessly attired in white ducks, until it gets all but one of the batting team out. The last man cannot continue batting because there is no one to score runs with--so he retires to the pavilion, head unbowed, and is listed on the scoreboards as "not out." Each side has two full innings, and owing to the difficulty of getting a team out twice in the limited time between...