i started watching cricket yesterday, and i love it

Some draws can be absolutely thrilling, even if they're played over 5 days.

Cricket is the only game that played over 5 days without any result.

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Win, lose, draw, which of those isn't a result?

Cricket in its purest form is a contest of skill, shouting and drinking for both young and old men from neighbouring villages. All that is required to play the game is 6 long sticks, 4 short sticks, 2 seal-clubs and 2 red or white, nearly round, orange sized objects which are capable of hurting someone.
You will also need a largish field, preferably with cow-pats removed, some whitewash (B&Q), a lawnmower (B&Q circa 1921), a little old man to push it around a bit before the game, 2 erstwhile unemployed ice-cream salesmen and a pavillion or nearby pub.
The object of the game is to meet before in the aforementioned pavillion/pub to take on ample quantities of liquid to prevent dehydration caused by the burning English sun, or caused by osmosis due to the freezing English rain. On arrival at the ground you toss a coin to decide who can sit to drink more and who has to attempt to stand up for a couple of hours which can be tiring as walking sticks and zimmer frames are not permitted. After a while you hobble pack to the pavillion/pub for some nice tea and cucumber sandwiches and cake made by the players' wives, girlfriends or the W.I. (and that is NOT a cricket team!)
Then the teams swap jobs until the two ice-cream salesmen decide who has won, and you go back for more beer where the man-of-the-match has to drink from an over-sized urine sample glass full of beer. I've never really been sure what happens between the beer, the sandwiches and the beer again.
But it's a great day out.

great post goad . although i think the original article was about the rules, i totally agree that the village/club element (with particular emphasis on tea) that youve described is a massive part of what the game is all about, in england at least

Tea is the best thing about playing cricket. Nothing worse than travelling away and being served up an awful tea.

There are rules ??????

2 erstwhile unemployed ice-cream salesmen
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is cricket the only game which is refereed by the players ?

Cricket is umpired by umpires

Cricket is umpired by umpires.
Football is refereed by referees.
Boxing is judged by judges.
And Bernie Ecclestone changes the rules of F1 to ensure his favourite wins.

MyChestHurts (U13859)
posted 1 day, 3 hours ago
Cricket is the only game that played over 5 days without any result.

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Win, lose, draw, which of those isn't a result?

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In other words, you can't pick a winner even though you played it for 5 days.

The longest test match of all was played between England and South Africa at Durban in 1938-39. This was a timeless test which lasted for 9 days, despite which the match ended in a draw since the England players had to leave to catch the boat back to England! Set 696 runs to win in the fourth innings they had reached an astonishing 654/5 and had a real chance of winning the match when they had to leave.

The best test was when Israel beat a combined team of their neighbours in 6 days in 1967.

Cricket is umpired by umpires
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ive played in 3 teams as an adult. in 2 of them there was one guy who was an umpire and only an umpire, with the other umpire being one of the player's from the batting team on rotation. in the other team i played for both umpires would be from the batting team. two of these teams were league sides and the other a village team which played friendlies.

i cant think of any other organised team sport where this happens.

The best test was when Israel beat a combined team of their neighbours in 6 days in 1967.
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???? really.

my favourite test series (with the possible exception of ashes 05) was england's tour to west indies in 90/91.

i think my fvourite gme was on that tour as well where it turned one way and the other with west indies (greenidge, haynes, richards and all) went from 96-0 to 100-4. alec stewart was at the wicket i think in the dark on day 5 as des haynes wasted just enough time for w indies to get out with a draw which enabled them to edge the series, 2-1 i think.

The best test was when Israel beat a combined team of their neighbours in 6 days in 1967.
==============

???? really.

oh, was that a war gag. went over my head unfortunately.

Sorry, but I remember it well and loved what happened. I was small for my age and so was a target for the big bullies, so the idea of the little kid kicking the seven bells out of the big local bullies appealed to me.

are we talking about the war between israel and palestine here ?

No Rob. There's a good account of the Six-Day War on Wikipaedia.

im confused about where this thread's gone tbh.

ive been to the spot where the old boundary used to be in jeruslalem before the 6 day war. it's near to an old american hotel. i actually kind of did a runner from a taxi after i changed my mind about taking a ride before we had reached the end of the hotel drive (which is where i got in the taxi). i didnt think it was doing a runner, but he seemed to.

'The little kid' is the last term I would use to describe Israel...in terms of military capacity that is

i didnt actually run off from the taxi by the way, i just said i wasnt going to pay anything. as we'd driven about 50 yards i thought this was perfectly reasonable.

without actually referring to the laws, is anyone up for an attempt to continue the explanation of the game (building on what has already been provided) by means of randomly desrcibing a rule at a time ?

I could start it off with :

in addition to no-balls, the following types of extras may occur :

wide (the bowler delivers the ball out of the batsman's reach - 1 run penalty and ball retaken)

bye - batsmen complete one or more runs without the batsman hitting the ball (usually classed as a wicketkeeper error)

leg bye - batseman complete one or more runs after the ball has come off the batsman's body

LBW

A common form of dismissal is leg before wicket.

A batsman should be given out LBW if, in the opinion of the umpire, the batsman's body (typically his leg) prevented the ball from hitting the wickets. A batsman may not be given out lbw in the following circumstances :

1. if he hit the ball with the bat
2. if the ball pitched outside his leg stump *
3. if he was attempting to hit the ball with his bat and the ball hit his body outside of his off stump


* the leg stump being the left stump (from the wicket keepers view point) for a right handed batsman.

the complete list of methods of dismissal is as follows :

1. bowled (as previously described)
2. caught (as previously described)
3. lbw (as previously described)
4. run out (as previously described)
5. stumped (as previously described)
6. caught and bowled (caught by the bowler)
7. hit the ball twice
8. obstructing the field
9. handled the ball
10. timed out (the batsman has 2 minutes to reach the middle from the time of the previous dismissal)

is that it ?

i never remember a batsman being timed out, and you might get one of 7 8 or 9 occuring in a season.