your ticket to cricket

If I could bottle up this weather and sell it, I'd be a millionaire. I realize that in about 2 weeks, the weather will be considered nothing short of hot, but right now, with a high of 88 and the morning sun holding the promise of warmth and a summer breeze, it's perfect. I feel like I should be heading out to the lake.

Onto international news. I know it's probably not even close to your radar in the states, but right now, the Cricket World Cup is going on. Cricket mania is in full force - everywhere I turn, there are TVs on with either a match playing or news of a just finished or upcoming match. Everyone was so bummed yesterday that their team lost, but they're hoping for a win tonight.

So husband likes cricket. He bonds with the guys here by watching cricket with them. I have tried to like it, because I mean, it looks so much like baseball. And I love baseball. But unfortunately, it's nothing like baseball. I don't understand a thing about it. It's like a foreign language, and we all know my woes of learning one language; I don't have the room in my brain to learn cricketese too. But for the sake of the world cup, I just googled a summary of the rules, and here's what I found at wikipedia:

Cricket is a bat and ball sport played between two teams, usually of eleven players each. A cricket match is played on a grass field (which is usually roughly oval), in the centre of which is a flat strip of ground 22 yards long, called a pitch. At each end of the pitch is a set of three parallel wooden stakes (known as stumps) driven into the ground, with two small crosspieces (known as bails) laid on top of them. This wooden structure is called a wicket. A player from the fielding team (the bowler) bowls a hard, fist-sized cork-centred leather ball from one wicket towards the other. The ball usually bounces once before reaching a player from the opposing team (the batsmen), who defends the wicket from the ball with a wooden cricket bat. The batsman, if he or she does not get out, may then run between the wickets, exchanging ends with the other batsman (the "non-striker"), who has been standing in an inactive role near the bowler's wicket, to score runs. The other members of the bowler's team stand in various positions around the field as fielders. The match is won by the team that scores more runs.

Got it now? Yeah, me neither.