BY DC CUEVA
Many years back, someone who's established himself as a leading podcaster on this site's primary beat of the MTV Challenge over the past decade, Brian Cohen posted a phone screenshot of an alert from one of his sports apps that read, "Sri Lanka beats India by 6 wickets with 13 balls remaining to win ICC World Twenty20 cricket title." In the caption Brian wondered, "I don't know what any of these words mean...", and this one responded in the comments on the former Twitter platform, "I know more than you about the sport of cricket," and gave the fellow Yankees fan a brief primer of what the sport is about...a sport that some fans here would like to refer to as "That Other Bat N' Ball Game."
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| All Photos Courtesy Wikipedia Commons |
When the International Olympic Committee gave the green light to the sport program for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles last fall, so much attention was deservedly given to the inclusion in the Games' return to America of flag football. There, a number of NFL players stated their intention to go for gold... same went for the return of baseball and softball to the Games and the inclusion of lacrosse and squash for the first time. But lost in the hoopla of that announcement was that the changes to the slate that will be included on sports' greatest stage will have a greater benefit outside of the United States. It's most especially the case in the British Commonwealth countries, and particular one nation that hosted the latest edition of its biggest championship event in a sport most of us don't follow at all.
As one of the world's most-followed sports, cricket is a sport that's totally different than the one we take for granted here in America. Unlike the World Series and baseball, cricket is a true world game that is played in all six continents instead of just primarily the Americas and Asia. The premise is the same in both cricket and baseball: hit a ball with a wooden bat on a grassy field, fielders and those tossing the ball to those batters, and score more runs than your opposition. But when one looks at the game much more closely, there are many differences between these two games... which is why the international game is so much different in many ways than our national pastime.
In addition to its upcoming Olympic appearance in L.A., this past month it hosted by far the biggest event that's ever been held on the North American continent -- and a preview of coming attractions in four years: a bite-sized version of the game that once again revolutionized this once genteel game played by privileged British gentlemen. And all it took for this sport to finally gain at least a footstep in the biggest sports market on earth: a team against the odds taking down a Goliath of the game that made sporting headlines everywhere with shades of what happened in upstate New York a generation ago.
HISTORY
Like several other sports that dominate the global scene, cricket supposedly originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1500's during medieval times as a kid's game, but as one of a slew of bat and ball sports that came onto the scene during that time. But it wasn't until the mid-1600's that the game began to take shape to the point where cricket clubs were formed throughout the British Isles. The most preeminent of those, the Marylebone Cricket Club in Westminster established itself in the 1800's as the hub of English cricket, the guardian of what is known as the Laws of Cricket... and for years was its governing body. Its home of Lord's Cricket Ground became the sport's most iconic stadium, one that is still the case today nearly 200 years after its forming.
The recent turmoil in men's professional golf, highlighted by the PGA Tour/LIV Golf split, brings to mind a most tumultuous time in cricket history: concerns over players being paid low salaries in the mid '70s, together with the battle for the lucrative television rights in Australia, brought about the breakaway circuit World Series Cricket. Led by businessman Kerry Packer, the league secretly snared away many of the era's top cricketers for a three-year series of matches that forever changed the game, led by innovations that brought the sport into a new era, and would later realize the previously untapped potential of commercialization of this tiny sport that became mainstream.
As a result of WSC, cricket greatly expanded beyond its roots as a game for Britain's rich and noble, and into one of the world's most-followed sports. It also turned its players into well-conditioned pro athletes thanks to the sport's schedule expanding beyond its most-revered form of first-class and test matches into one-day games as well as its quadrennial World Cup that began in 1975. At the same time, the sport expanded into new countries such as South Africa after its sanctions over apartheid were lifted, followed by new developments that would help to expand the game around the world.
But with its roots in the British Commonwealth, it is no surprise that international cricket has long been dominated by only a small handful of nations whose royal head of state is the British Monarch. And the list of teams that have top-tier playing status is akin to a traditional power-five college football conference: only twelve can lay claim to that handful in Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies, and Zimbabwe. And any time two major powers collide in any international match, it's can't miss TV.
England was where the sport originated, but success was hard to come by for years in a country where soccer has long been its most-popular sport. It wasn't until the 2000's that its national side had finally emerged to become worthy contenders in cricket, starting in 2005 when they won back the prize of the game's most historic rivalry of The Ashes over Australia, which had won the last two World Cups. Then in summer 2019 on the same day as the Wimbledon gentlemen's final and the Formula 1 British Grand Prix, England's cricketers finally gained their elusive prize: a "super over" tiebreaker after a draw in regulation with Pakistan saw them lift the 2019 Cricket World Cup... and then added the following year's T20 world title.
Strategically planned on back-to-back days over the middle weekend of the group phase in this year's edition of the T20 World Cup, Australia vs. England is just one of the two major rivalries that cricket just lives for whenever two super-powers meet. And while it might be the sport's oldest and most-history rich matchup, the other is the game's equivalent to El Clasico and Yankees/Red Sox: India vs. Pakistan is the embodiment of the two nation's simmering rivalry that goes beyond the pitch. And the drama and passion both of these rivalries produce can be compared to Michigan/Ohio State, Duke/North Carolina and Lakers/Celtics... only these have greater stakes.
NEED TO KNOW
Like soccer, American football and a few other team sports, cricket sides field teams of eleven players a side on a large oval-sized field. Where most of the action in any baseball game takes place in the dirt diamond infield, the main focus for any cricket fan is focused on a rectangular strip in the center called the "pitch," which contains two wickets at either end for the showdown between batters and bowlers.
Whoever bats and fields in a baseball game is always determined by who is the home team (who always bats in the bottom half of each inning), but whoever takes the field first in cricket is determined by a pregame coin toss between the two captains before play begins. Like an NFL game, the winner of the toss (whose team is always represented by its captain) chooses whether to bat first or last in a particular innings.
There are three primary forms of cricket, the most-prestigious of which are five-day test matches: two innings per team spread out over five days, with as many as 8-10 hours of game time per day, and which often sees either team score more than 500 total runs in a match. The second is one that came into being during the WSC era called "one-day" games -- matches that begin and end on the same day... and which would overtake tests as the most financially lucrative in the sport with only one inning a side. And there's a third form that will be part of its Olympic return, which will be explained here shortly.
When play begins, the ball is always delivered by the fielding team's bowler towards the wicket being guarded by the batsman. The batter is joined by a fellow batsman from the batting team, and the fielding team has fielders located around the oval -- including a wicketkeeper located behind the wicket (whose position is similar to a baseball catcher). And a bowler makes six deliveries from one end of the wicket called an "over," and after each set the balls are then bowled from the opposite end.
Batters must defend their wickets while also attempting to hit the ball out of reach of their opponents so they can have as much time to run from one wicket to another, and thus pass each other... and this is the primary form of runs being scored, as they try to score as many before the ball returns to the pitch. Conversely the defense do what they can to prevent the offense from scoring as many runs, including trying to break the wicket before the batters complete a run.
Batsmen not only cross each other to record runs, they can also go deep like any home run hitter -- and it also makes for the game's most entertaining aspect. If a batter hits the ball out of bounds over the boundary line, he can score either six runs if it's a fly ball or four if it makes contact with the ground before going over. Additional runs can be scored for a passed ball that doesn't make contact with the bat called a "bye," or if it's a "no ball" should the bowler make an illegal delivery.
Like baseball and softball, there are ways for a batter to be called out.... and where the most direct way is its equivalent of a strikeout: a batter being "bowled out" when a bowler knocks over the bails of a wicket, formed by three sticks embedded into the pitch. Like baseball, any ball caught on the fly after it's hit in the air also can be an out, as well as its most subjective way of an LBW -- a "leg before wicket" is when a batter purposely uses his legs to prevent it from striking the wicket directly in its path.
Cricket takes a cue from the original format of Home Run Derby in that it takes ten outs for a team's innings to end in a test match, or if the set number of overs in a one-day match is reached without getting all batters out. A match ends if the result is reached within a time frame, or if tests end with a draw should a result not be reached when weather wrecks with the schedule... and there's always the possibility of a match ending in a tie. And there are two umpires who make all the calls in a match, very often using video replay to determine any closely contested decision.
For equipment, a cricket bat is very much different from the one used in baseball, with the most obvious difference being the front of the bat is flat to help hit the ball. His equipment also consists of a helmet with a chin guard to prevent bouncers from hitting his helmet, along with protectors on his legs similar to a catcher. The ball used in games is hard, stitched in leather either colored in red for test matches or white for limited overs games.
T20 TAKES OVER,
& AMERICA NEXT?
The LA28 Olympic program will reflect the broad diversity of the sports world at large, the mission of the International Olympic Committee to pass along this centuries-old tradition to the next generation of fans, and bringing to the fore a new slew of sports that will have their moment to shine in the Southern California sun at sports' biggest spectacle. There came with it a hotly contested race for emerging sports to gain coveted spots alongside the other perennial staples in the first American Summer Games since Atlanta 1996, which made for one of the most fascinating battles in recent Olympic history.
Last October in the Indian city of Mumbai and prior to India hosting the most recent Cricket World Cup, the IOC got to hear from worthy candidates their passionate pleas on why they deserve to be at LA28. In the end, most of the attention in the U.S. was on flag football after a successful rehearsal at the World Games in Birmingham, as well as the return of baseball and softball to the program. Also joining the program -- and at the expense of Paris' lone newcomer of the dancesport discipline of breaking -- are both lacrosse and squash... but internationally most focus was paid to the sixth and last sport to get into the 2028 Games.
Cricket was last included at an Olympics in 1900 in Paris, and where host nation France was beaten by Great Britain in the final. For decades, the game's national governing bodies were reluctant in letting the sport return to the Games, but only when Los Angeles was named host in 2017 did the ICC started to make an Olympic return a top priority. And after years of consultation and hope, the IOC made that a reality for 2028 with the possibility of 2032 on the table in Brisbane, Australia... and as it was for rugby in Rio, the form of the sport chosen was one that allows the IOC to stay true to having as many sports as possible and yet keep a cap on the number of athletes competing at a particular Games.
The Twenty20 form of the sport has been compared to the likes of Olympic cousins 3X3 basketball, rugby sevens, mixed doubles curling and flag football in bringing an easier-to-digest, and more compact form of their parent sports to a younger generation. The third form of the game was developed in the 2000's by the English Cricket Board in response to address falling attendance and reduced sponsorship at tests and one-day games, and to create a faster-paced and more exciting form of the game that can resonate with a younger audience.
The new T20 competition became an instant hit in bringing more fans to the ground, and it almost immediately caught the attention of other nations as they experienced rare sellout crowds to their own domestic T20 leagues. It didn't take long before international Twenty20 games joined tests and one-day's on the cricket schedule by the 2004-05 season, followed a couple years later by the ICC holding its first T20 World Cup in the discipline in 2007 in South Africa - being open to both the test nations and to other countries to help grow the sport around the world.
As far and away the sport's most lucrative market and its most powerful national governing body, it was no surprise that the following year the Board of Control for Cricket in India started the Indian Premier League. Molding together franchises in the biggest cities of what is now the world's most populated nation with luring the game's top players, the IPL is to the Asian continent what the EPL is to England and the four major leagues are to America. It is now among sports' most-passionately followed leagues, inspiring the likes of Australia's Big Bash League and others around the cricket world in sparking another revolution in the sport just as World Series Cricket did a generation before.
Cricket, like many other obscure sports, has always had a small niche American following with many of its fans on our shores being immigrants of Asian descent or who have moved in from the British Commonwealth... and with over 200,000 players across the country - a fraction of the other team sports. But after baseball slowed cricket's growth, the ladder descended into obscurity... and into the point where America's original governing body was suspended from the ICC in 2007 for various operational issues. USA Cricket emerged out of the turmoil a decade later, and so did a new domestic T20 league called Major League Cricket, which just began its second season.
And it comes on the heels of what happened on June 6th: in their second game of the group stage in a converted baseball stadium in a Dallas-Fort Worth area awaiting the hometown Mavericks in the NBA Finals, an underdog U.S. team faced off against a powerhouse Pakistan team that, for a time, had America buzzing. Pakistan and captain Babar Azam went out first and recorded 159 runs with seven wickets, and Team USA managed to tie the game while losing only three batsmen. The match then went into cricket's version of overtime known as a "Super Over," and in extra innings the home team shocked Pakistan by 18 runs to 13 with a wicket each, as the U.S. ultimately advanced to the second round of a tournament eventually claimed by India.
This miracle on the pitch was the buzz of the sports world in the hours after that shocking upset and cast a shadow over the rest of the tournament, providing a foundation for cricket to grow in the final frontier for any global phenomenon to become a true worldwide sensation: breaking through in America. It's that other bat 'n ball game that has a greater global reach than our national pastime, and where it has fans who are as passionate about fours, sixes, wickets and great catches as fans in Columbus and Athens are for football on autumn Saturdays. Just a glimpse into this sport, and you'll see why it might be just the next big thing.
🏏 🏏 🏏 🏏 🏏
Today amidst this busy event weekend, regular content on DCBLOG returns as we kick off our special 2024 Summer of Sports series. As the year's final golf major in The Open in Scotland and the WNBA All-Star Game take place this weekend, afterwards the focus shifts to the final countdown to the Paris Olympics. DCBLOG plans to feature regular posts on Olympic matters and other things from the sports world in the coming month -- all around this Olympic superfan's busy live-watch schedule -- and join me on DCNOW @DC408DxNow on Twitter to follow all that when the #DCGames24 binge watch begins on Wednesday. And after the Closing Ceremony on August 11, we'll be previewing Season 40 of America's fifth major pro sport: MTV's The Challenge and the Battle of the Eras... and welcome to this stellar summer we have ahead.
- I AM DC
@DC408DXTR
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