5 ms·

> Bruce Edgar, who was on 102 not out, was stuck at the non-striker's end the entire over. Now Americans can finally know how Europeans feel when watching base

by dvh 3mo ago

> Bruce Edgar, who was on 102 not out, was stuck at the non-striker's end the entire over. Now Americans can finally know how Europeans feel when watching baseball

alt219 3mo ago
As an American it has taken me nearly half a century of occasionally watching cricket to barely comprehend what that sentence means. I love it.
- stavros 3mo ago
  As a European, what the hell is going on.
dchest 3mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_6d3JBBo4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_6d3JBBo4s
- gib444 3mo ago
  Classic display of hoop-shorting and running wide and low, all while ignoring the reds on the board The chums are going to rib him rotten over the cucumber sandwiches and tea in the wains room at half-over time
esperent 3mo ago
> Americans Everyone not from one Uk, India... maybe Australia you mean?
- gib444 3mo ago
  ...South Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Indies...
- roryirvine 3mo ago
  Not even the whole of the UK - really only England and Wales (as a singular entity, rather than individually). The rest of us know it only for its impenetrable jargon ("They've risked a woggle on the silly midden!"), the grating public school chumminess of the commentators, and a rumour about a puerile "joke" which may or may not have been told on the radio coverage in the early 1980s. Honestly, it's a sport I suspect I ought to like - full of stats and strategy - but it really does seem impossible to follow unless you've been inculcated since birth.
  - scott_w 3mo ago
    > The rest of us know it only for its impenetrable jargon ("They've risked a woggle on the silly midden!") You’re thinking of the fielding position “silly point,” so named because the chances of getting knocked out by the ball to the face are so high you’d be silly to stand there. By “midden” you might be thinking of “maiden,” which is a bowler competing a “maiden over” by completing their 6 balls without conceding a run. An over is just a block of play consisting of 6 balls before switching bowlers. It’s not as impenetrable as it first sounds, it just needs a bit of time to watch. Most sports have some jargon (offside anyone?)
    - zimpenfish 3mo ago
      [dead]
  - gib444 3mo ago
    > Not even the whole of the UK - really only England and Wales "Only" England & Wales ... which is ~90% of the UK population. It's a fair generalisation in a casual context like this. We get it, cricket isn't wildly popular in Northern Ireland (nor Scotland). Why chastise the parent for suggesting it is? But come on - don't shoehorn an indirect political point into a casual conversation. And as if cricket was unique in having jargon? Hurling doesn't have jargon? Gaelic football? Football? Of course they do.
    - esperent 3mo ago
      It's ok, no chastisement was felt by me and I was happy to be corrected.
- foldr 3mo ago
  Cricket is the world's second most popular sport. It's actually much more popular than baseball from a global perspective.
  - iberator 3mo ago
    It's a british myth. 99% world population outside India doesn't care about cricket. A better metric is the average % of likes from ALL countries.
    - foldr 3mo ago
      How is it a myth? It has 2.5 billion fans worldwide (in comparison to 3.5 billion for football). That’s 1 billion in excess of the entire population of India, so clearly there are some fans elsewhere! You’re perhaps forgetting Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and various countries in SE Asia apart from India (e.g. Bangladesh, Pakistan).
pdpi 3mo ago
It’s surprisingly simple, actually. A cricket pitch is a long strip. Bowler bowls from one end, batter strikes the bowl from the other. Scoring is done by running from one end of that strip to the other (the unit of scoring is literally called a run). Six legal bowls make an over. There are two batters in play at each point in time, one at each end of the pitch, and they both must run towards the other end of the pitch (therefore swapping places) to score. Bruce Edgar had scored 102 runs, was not out (in the same sense as baseball — meaning he was still in play), but, because they either didn’t manage to score any runs, or scored twos, he spent the whole over on the non-striking side of the pitch.
- senthil_rajasek 3mo ago
  Explaining Cricket to a Baseball fan only makes it worse. I have tried it many times and failed. Personally, playing a few games of cricket is the best way to learn the rules of the game. As an example, in your explanation ( which is good to this lifelong cricket fan from India) your first sentence starts "A cricket pitch..." And when a baseball fan reads it he is probably asking "What is a cricket pitch?"
  - dismalaf 3mo ago
    Nah, cricket is pretty analogous to baseball. Instead of 9 innings there's one inning, at least in ODI or T20 formats (best to watch anyway). Instead of 3 outs there's 10 outs (called wickets). An out is having a ball caught after you hit it (same as baseball) or the ball hitting the wickets when at bat (kind of like strikeout) or a fielder knocking the wicket off with the ball before you reach the line, which is basically the same as being thrown out in baseball. Scoring is similar, you score runs when you run the bases. When it gets hit out, it's basically the same as a homerun except if it goes out after bouncing it's only 4 points, straight out is 6. If anything it's easier to understand than baseball. No strike/ball count, it's basically you hit it, miss it, or are bowled out. Running is easier to understand too, anytime you reach the other side it's a point. Most of the complication is during test matches because of tactics/tradition. The basic rules are a lot like baseball. Also, to get anyone into cricket, just show them a T20 match. More action than baseball.
svat 3mo ago
X, who was Y, was stuck at Z the entire W. (Bruce Edgar), who was (on (102 not out)), was stuck at (the (non-striker's end)) the entire (over). • An “over” consists of six opportunities to hit the ball and score “runs”. (A “run” is the basic unit of scoring.) • "102 not out" indicates how many runs the player had personally contributed to the team's score. The number is large enough to suggest that this was the player who was playing particularly well in that match. So the sentence is saying that the player who could be expected to make good use of whichever of those six opportunities he got, did not get any of them. I think as with most cases of unfamiliar jargon, the sentence can be confusing not because of unusual words but because of everyday words being used with technical meanings ("not out", "end", "over").
Sniffnoy 3mo ago
I like this explanation of cricket for Americans: https://www.dangermouse.net/cricket/baseball.html https://www.dangermouse.net/cricket/baseball.html
aorth 3mo ago
I was reminded of this hilarious skit about English sports. https://youtu.be/E_6d3JBBo4s https://youtu.be/E_6d3JBBo4s
rayiner 3mo ago
This article was like reading Harry Potter.
- cardiffspaceman 3mo ago
  I kept thinking of the sketch in which contestants in a quiz contest attempt to summarize Proust. IYKYK.
Polizeiposaune 3mo ago
I (an American) once arrived in a hotel room in Finland, sleep deprived after a long couple flights, flipped on the TV and saw a game of Pesäpallo. Made me wonder what I was seeing and what might have caused me to hallucinate..

by dvh 3mo ago

> Bruce Edgar, who was on 102 not out, was stuck at the non-striker's end the entire over. Now Americans can finally know how Europeans feel when watching baseball

alt219 3mo ago

As an American it has taken me nearly half a century of occasionally watching cricket to barely comprehend what that sentence means. I love it.

stavros 3mo ago
As a European, what the hell is going on.

dchest 3mo ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_6d3JBBo4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_6d3JBBo4s

gib444 3mo ago
Classic display of hoop-shorting and running wide and low, all while ignoring the reds on the board The chums are going to rib him rotten over the cucumber sandwiches and tea in the wains room at half-over time

esperent 3mo ago

> Americans Everyone not from one Uk, India... maybe Australia you mean?

gib444 3mo ago
...South Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Indies...
roryirvine 3mo ago
Not even the whole of the UK - really only England and Wales (as a singular entity, rather than individually). The rest of us know it only for its impenetrable jargon ("They've risked a woggle on the silly midden!"), the grating public school chumminess of the commentators, and a rumour about a puerile "joke" which may or may not have been told on the radio coverage in the early 1980s. Honestly, it's a sport I suspect I ought to like - full of stats and strategy - but it really does seem impossible to follow unless you've been inculcated since birth.
- scott_w 3mo ago
  > The rest of us know it only for its impenetrable jargon ("They've risked a woggle on the silly midden!") You’re thinking of the fielding position “silly point,” so named because the chances of getting knocked out by the ball to the face are so high you’d be silly to stand there. By “midden” you might be thinking of “maiden,” which is a bowler competing a “maiden over” by completing their 6 balls without conceding a run. An over is just a block of play consisting of 6 balls before switching bowlers. It’s not as impenetrable as it first sounds, it just needs a bit of time to watch. Most sports have some jargon (offside anyone?)
  - zimpenfish 3mo ago
    [dead]
- gib444 3mo ago
  > Not even the whole of the UK - really only England and Wales "Only" England & Wales ... which is ~90% of the UK population. It's a fair generalisation in a casual context like this. We get it, cricket isn't wildly popular in Northern Ireland (nor Scotland). Why chastise the parent for suggesting it is? But come on - don't shoehorn an indirect political point into a casual conversation. And as if cricket was unique in having jargon? Hurling doesn't have jargon? Gaelic football? Football? Of course they do.
  - esperent 3mo ago
    It's ok, no chastisement was felt by me and I was happy to be corrected.
foldr 3mo ago
Cricket is the world's second most popular sport. It's actually much more popular than baseball from a global perspective.
- iberator 3mo ago
  It's a british myth. 99% world population outside India doesn't care about cricket. A better metric is the average % of likes from ALL countries.
  - foldr 3mo ago
    How is it a myth? It has 2.5 billion fans worldwide (in comparison to 3.5 billion for football). That’s 1 billion in excess of the entire population of India, so clearly there are some fans elsewhere! You’re perhaps forgetting Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and various countries in SE Asia apart from India (e.g. Bangladesh, Pakistan).

pdpi 3mo ago

It’s surprisingly simple, actually. A cricket pitch is a long strip. Bowler bowls from one end, batter strikes the bowl from the other. Scoring is done by running from one end of that strip to the other (the unit of scoring is literally called a run). Six legal bowls make an over. There are two batters in play at each point in time, one at each end of the pitch, and they both must run towards the other end of the pitch (therefore swapping places) to score. Bruce Edgar had scored 102 runs, was not out (in the same sense as baseball — meaning he was still in play), but, because they either didn’t manage to score any runs, or scored twos, he spent the whole over on the non-striking side of the pitch.

senthil_rajasek 3mo ago
Explaining Cricket to a Baseball fan only makes it worse. I have tried it many times and failed. Personally, playing a few games of cricket is the best way to learn the rules of the game. As an example, in your explanation ( which is good to this lifelong cricket fan from India) your first sentence starts "A cricket pitch..." And when a baseball fan reads it he is probably asking "What is a cricket pitch?"
- dismalaf 3mo ago
  Nah, cricket is pretty analogous to baseball. Instead of 9 innings there's one inning, at least in ODI or T20 formats (best to watch anyway). Instead of 3 outs there's 10 outs (called wickets). An out is having a ball caught after you hit it (same as baseball) or the ball hitting the wickets when at bat (kind of like strikeout) or a fielder knocking the wicket off with the ball before you reach the line, which is basically the same as being thrown out in baseball. Scoring is similar, you score runs when you run the bases. When it gets hit out, it's basically the same as a homerun except if it goes out after bouncing it's only 4 points, straight out is 6. If anything it's easier to understand than baseball. No strike/ball count, it's basically you hit it, miss it, or are bowled out. Running is easier to understand too, anytime you reach the other side it's a point. Most of the complication is during test matches because of tactics/tradition. The basic rules are a lot like baseball. Also, to get anyone into cricket, just show them a T20 match. More action than baseball.

svat 3mo ago

X, who was Y, was stuck at Z the entire W. (Bruce Edgar), who was (on (102 not out)), was stuck at (the (non-striker's end)) the entire (over). • An “over” consists of six opportunities to hit the ball and score “runs”. (A “run” is the basic unit of scoring.) • "102 not out" indicates how many runs the player had personally contributed to the team's score. The number is large enough to suggest that this was the player who was playing particularly well in that match. So the sentence is saying that the player who could be expected to make good use of whichever of those six opportunities he got, did not get any of them. I think as with most cases of unfamiliar jargon, the sentence can be confusing not because of unusual words but because of everyday words being used with technical meanings ("not out", "end", "over").

Sniffnoy 3mo ago

I like this explanation of cricket for Americans: https://www.dangermouse.net/cricket/baseball.html https://www.dangermouse.net/cricket/baseball.html

aorth 3mo ago

I was reminded of this hilarious skit about English sports. https://youtu.be/E_6d3JBBo4s https://youtu.be/E_6d3JBBo4s

rayiner 3mo ago

This article was like reading Harry Potter.

cardiffspaceman 3mo ago
I kept thinking of the sketch in which contestants in a quiz contest attempt to summarize Proust. IYKYK.

Polizeiposaune 3mo ago

I (an American) once arrived in a hotel room in Finland, sleep deprived after a long couple flights, flipped on the TV and saw a game of Pesäpallo. Made me wonder what I was seeing and what might have caused me to hallucinate..