First of all, I think an apology is in order. Yes, I’m talking about my extraordinarily unimaginative title. As it so plainly states, this article is about cricket.

What is cricket? The answer is simple - Cricket is a bat-and-ball game in which two teams of eleven players, commonly known as XIs, compete with each other on a large field, which is usually oval-shaped. In the middle of this field is a pitch. This sounds a bit confusing, especially for you footballers out there, because a pitch usually refers to a field. However, in cricket, a pitch is a barren part of the ground, 22 yards long and 4 yards wide. It is here that most of the action takes place in a cricket match. At either end of this strip of ground, are the wickets. These are essentially three pieces of wood which are stuck into the ground.

Now for the fun part. As I mentioned earlier, cricket is played between two teams of eleven players. These teams take turns to bat, bowl and field. Bowling is the act of delivering/throwing a cricket ball, while fielding is the act of preventing batsmen from scoring runs, by stopping the ball. Fielding is easily the most tedious job in cricket, because all you do is stand around and catch balls. Quite frankly, I’m willing to bet hat nobody’s idea of fun is to stand under the hot sun for hours on end, hoping that you catch the next ball that hurtles towards you. This sometimes goes on for days.

There are many different methods of bowling, such as fast bowling, in which the bowler relies on sheer speed to fox the batsman and spin bowling, in which the bowler attempts to bamboozle the batsman by making the ball turn. Most bowlers are only adept at one style of bowling. This is because fast and spin bowling require two very different sets of skills. Fast bowlers basically attempt to frighten the batsman into error by being aggressive, mercurial characters. They always glare at batsmen and aim to knock their heads off. For example, one of the greatest fast bowlers, Dennis Lillee of Australia, was notorious for attempting to hit the batsman rather than try and dismiss him. In fact, helmets for batsmen were invented because of him.

Spin bowlers on the other hand, are quite meek characters. This meekness fools batsmen into thinking that they are a source of free runs. As a result, they are fooled by the turning ball and get themselves out. I’m betting that most of you reading this now are thinking that fast bowlers are probably the most successful. It’s a bit of a misconception really, because most of the best bowlers in history are spinners. In fact, the best bowler cricket has ever had is playing now for Sri Lanka and he is a spinner. The object of the bowler is to dismiss the batsman. A batsman, when dismissed, is said to be "out" which means he must leave the field of play and be replaced by the next batsman on his team.

Batting is the act of striking the ball in an effort to score runs. There are always two batsmen on the pitch. One will stand at either end. One will face the balls thrown down by the bowler, while the other will not. These two are known as the striker and non-striker respectively. Runs are made when a batsman uses his bat to strike the ball, and then runs the length of the pitch, with the non-striker running to the opposite end as well. This also leads to a rotation of strike, in which the non-striker now becomes the striker. As you can imagine, this can be just as tiring as fielding because a batsman can bat for as long as he is not dismissed within the timeframe of the match. Some people have even batted for times in excess of 15 hours! Most of the game’s great characters are batsmen - not because bowlers are bad, but because batsmen have charisma and the fans are able to identify with them. Case in point: everybody has heard of Sachin Tendulkar, the best batsman in the world, but not everyone knows Muttiah Muralitharan, who is the best bowler in the world. Both are the best at what they do, but more people are able to identify with the batsman, who is always the man who makes or breaks the game.

There are many different formats of the game and consequently, the rules vary from one format to another. I shall focus on the oldest format of the game, namely Test cricket. There are only 10 teams in the world that are certified to play Test cricket. Yes, its that exclusive. The No. 1 ranked team is currently India, which just happens to be my favourite team. So for all you people out there reading this article, you should support India because they’re just the best (bear with me, I go into a frenzy whenever India is mentioned). Anyway, I am definitely digressing. So, Test cricket is played over five days. In each day, there are three sessions of play. Each of these sessions consists of two hours. There are breaks for lunch and tea but its really tiring especially for the fielding team. Before the game, the captains of the two opposing teams will toss a coin, to determine who will bat and who will bowl. The winner of the toss will choose either one of the two options, after which the game will commence.

Each team is given a total of two innings. An innings is the collective performance of the batting side. It ends when all batsmen have been dismissed, or when a captain chooses to close his innings (this is called a declaration). This is repeated until the team batting second has to meet the target of runs set by the team which batted first. There are three ways in which the Test may now end. The first way is a win, in which the team batting last manages to meet the total number of runs without all their batsmen being dismissed. The second is a loss, in which the team batting second is completely dismissed without meeting the target. The third is a draw, in which the batting side fails to meet the target, but still has wickets in hand when the five days are up. However, in some very rare cases, Test have been tied. This happens when both teams score exactly the same number of runs. Tied Tests are very rare, with only 2 ever occurring. Most Tests are drawn, which has led to many people calling the format boring, because of the inability of teams to produce decisive results.

That is a rough idea of how cricket is played. It may all sound very confusing, but once you understand it, you will be hooked on the game. It is very rewarding as a game, and deserves to be more popular than it is now. So, hopefully you’ve now learnt something new so that it wasn’t a complete waste of your time reading this article, but if not, think about it this way: its still better than doing homework, right?