Today was a monumental day in the sport of cricket. Virender Sehwag, during today’s leg of the India-Sri Lanka test match, scored the fastest 250 in the HISTORY of test cricket.
What does that number mean? Who is Virender Sehwag? What the hell is a test match?
Glad you asked. But here’s a little story for you first.
I fell in love with cricket during an India visit several years ago. And by falling in love with the sport, I mean falling for a handsome British cricketer that was batting against India: Alastair Cook.
Anyway, after seeing him (and noticing that many cricket players are quite easy on the eyes), I cajoled my father into explaining the sport to me, and I’ve been following since.
Here’s what you need to know about cricket.
- Cricket matches are broken into 5 day test matches (three of these make up a series), 1 day matches, and Twenty20 matches (a comparatively quick match)
- Each team is comprised of 11 players, who play the position of either batsmen or bowler and designate a specialist wicket-keeper.
- Bowlers are the cricket equivalent to pitchers. Batsmen are batters (duh).
- At any given time, the defending team has 1 bowler, 1 wicket-keeper, and 9 fielders (4 on offside, 5 on onside). The offense team has two batsmen on the field.
- At the end of the each side of the pitch sit the wickets (those three sticks with the two balls balancing in the spaces).
- Each bowler bowls 6 times. These six bowls are called an over. The rotation repeats if all the bowlers in the lineup have pitched an over.
- The batter does not have to run when he hits the ball, if he thinks that he’ll get out on the hit. Consider this a foul ball.
- An out is called a wicket, and occurs when the wickets are knocked down. This can occur either when the bowler throws the ball and the batsman misses, or when the batsman is running to the wicket and the wicket-keeper gets the ball from a fieldsman and knocks them down before the batsman reaches the wicket.
- If the ball is hit over the perimeter (field boundary), it’s worth 6 runs. If the ball rolls to the perimeter, it’s worth 4 runs.
- Batsman keep batting until they’re out. Which is why they can score an absurdly large number of runs (like 250).
- Scoring is as such: (runs) – (wickets). Once a team has batted 10 wickets (gotten 10 outs), they switch to defense and the defending team is at bat.
That’s as much as I can divulge without making this post absurdly long. Definitely check this out for more details (or add comments below, if you’re a cricket expert).
But all I can say is Sehwag = Stud. Well done today. And jai Hind!
