Does the world really need yet another purposely incomprehensible explanation of cricket?

I think not. But that's just tough because I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

And I'm going into this knowing full well the inherent dangers of doing so, as expressed in this quote from The West Wing's sadly fictional President Jed Bartlett:

"Now, I am an educated man, but when someone tries to explain cricket to me, all I want to do is hit him in the head with a teapot."

One could consider it less than funny that the second most popular sport in the world (after soccer), with over 120 recognised cricket playing nations, remains not just mysterious but contemptible to most Americans. Even the sadly fictional ones. But if it weren't for this I wouldn't have had so much fun over the years bamboozling my internet friends with such basic things as the score. "They were all out for 197 so we enforced the follow on and by stumps had them 5 for 78. I can't see it going to the fifth day." To which I'd invariably receive the reply, "Huh?"

So, the time for "Huh?" is over. Let's get on with it.

Cricket is a game originating in England. But unlike darts, which also originated in England, the drinking can't start until the game is over. For the players that is. For the spectators the drinking starts as soon as the bar opens, or if you're at home watching it on telly, whenever you reckon it's a fair thing.

There are eleven players to each side along with a twelfth man who is permitted to neither bowl nor bat should he be required as a replacement. This would suggest his existence is fairly useless except for the fact that he brings on the drinks during the morning break in play, which is imaginitively called ‘drinks'. There is a second, longer break called ‘lunch' held midway through the day-long proceedings and a third rest, which is charmingly called ‘tea', an hour or so before stumps.* The tea is no longer served to the players via a teapot due to the alarming rise in injuries sustained since that episode of The West Wing was aired.

*Stumps means the end of play for the day. In general speech throughout the British Empire people will often refer to the end of any proceedings as ‘stumps'. For example, "I stayed at the pub til stumps but he never showed." Or "The kids were having a ball at the water slide but I had to call stumps when the storm started brewing." See? It's all very simple. Except that stumps also refer to the three individual sticks that make up the wicket in front of which the batter stands, plus it is one of the ways a player can be dismissed, that is, by being stumped. You stumped yet?

To begin the five day match a coin is tossed and the winning captain elects to either bat first or field first. The decision will be based on the condition of the pitch, the weather forecast, how much he's personally bet on the game and whether or not his strike bowlers were on the piss the previous night. After the toss the batting side goes away to either pad up or call their bookie, depending on the batting order, and the fielding team takes up their positions. There will be two opening bowlers selected to begin the attack from either end of the pitch in alternate overs. They will prepare by removing their wooly vests, undertaking warm-up exercises, flicking their hair about, applying zinc cream to their noses and calling their agent.

Another position of vital importance to the fielding team is the wicket keeper. This player, a specialist with razor sharp reflexes and immutable courage, stands behind the wicket at the batting end and must stop each ball that whizzes past the batter before it goes flying to the boundary for four. (The good ones have the gift of flight and at least twelve broken bones in each hand.)  Other positions on the field include the slips, gully, the third man (zither music optional) deep mid off, silly mid on, deep cover, deep extra cover, deep midwicket, fine leg, square leg, deep square leg, deeply deeply silly forward square leg, and on it goes.

The fielding team's job is to dismiss all the batters except the last one (he can't bat alone, in a similar way to how women can't go the bathroom alone when they're at the pub) while limiting the numbers of runs they score. Runs are scored by the batters running between the wickets while the ball is being fielded. A ball hit to a boundary scores four runs automatically and one pounded over the fence is rewarded with six runs. Hitting as many boundaries as possible saves the batter valuable energy, dispirits the bowlers and makes the umpires perform funny arm movements.

The batting team's job is to score as many runs as possible before they are all dismissed, or before they run out of time. You might think it a little rich that in five days there isn't enough time, but it happens more often than not. The result of such a match is called a draw. Which is different to a tie. Tied matches are very rare but also very exciting. That is, they are very exciting for the final ten minutes of those five days. So exciting in fact that the whole new sports of one-day cricket, and the even newer, quicker twenty20 game were introduced. These limited over games have the potential for those exciting final ten minutes to occur every time they're played.  I don't wish to be overly political here in this harmless little piece, but to me that's like expecting Santa to come every day rather than just at Christmas.  And it's precisely this tendency to pander to the impatience of youth that is destroying this country and leading us down the dangerous road of permissiveness and self-interest...  You'll have to excuse me, I was suddenly channelling Sir Robert Menzies there.  Shouldn't happen again.

I can sense there are teapots out there being weighed carefully and trajectories calculated so I'll thank you for your time and draw this to a close before they can be launched.