AIBU to ask you if you understand the rules of cricket?

[Flyingfish2019]

Have to say I am not a Brit and had very little exposure if cricket but whenever I hear about it it sounds like it is a game with circa 5000 hard to remember rules and circa 30.000 exceptions from that rules and cannot be fun at all.
Is this just me?

@LakieLady like when Paul Collingwood kept us in the Cardiff match in the ashes until it was left to Monty and Jimmy to get us home. God I do love cricket.

I can remember my dad explaining the rule when I was a child but I didn't really bother. We played on the beach as a family but really it was a boys sport and girls were not allowed to play.

My eldest son asked to go to cricket training with school friends when he was 10. That started my connection with the sport. We got involved with club cricket. Socially and supporting junior teams to start with. We learnt how to score for the junior teams. The rules are not that complicated. School cricket followed so I became involved with transporting lads to away games. Foolishly admitted I knew how the score book worked!

DS1 progressed to the senior teams in his early teens and our younger DC also started playing. We got more involved with ground and club house maintenance, fund raising and the tea rota.

It's been a fantastic sport for them to grow up in and we have made lots of friends. It is an important part of all our summers. It's something we are missing during lock down.

Simple when you know how :-)

It's something we are missing during lock down.

DD is training tonight for the first time since lockdown. Groups of 5 + coach in the nets She's all kitted up with her own kit (borrowed from the club) and is very excited that gets to play with a hard ball. Much as I grumble about fetching and carrying the DC to sports, etc its been very weird without.

Typically, after a beautiful few weeks which have dried out the waterlogged pitch, its's raining!

@BikeRunSki

Was just about to post exacly the same thing!

BikeRunSki - I love that tea towel!

I understand the rules of cricket but I'm more up to speed with American football and baseball though, as they're what's played locally and what my family tends to watch together. I've had moments of nearly throwing up with nerves when my son was playing baseball, especially when he was pitcher.

Watching cricket seems to be an excellent excuse to sit in the sun for days drinking. God knows how it's actually played.

As the daughter, sister and wife of cricketers, I think I was born knowing.

Yes, I know the rules. My dad used to play so I spent much of my childhood hanging around the edge of a cricket pitch. It's a wonderful game.

Yanbu, used to be taken to cricket as a child, it was like time had stopped, the day never ended!

I get it. Blimmin love cricket.

I know someone whose son played at Lords. It was only the Village Cup final, but she got to see her boy walk out to bat on that famous pitch, and she said she felt so proud, she cried.

She told me this when I bumped into her in Tesco, and I got all teary just thinking about it, especially as her cricket-mad husband never lived to see it.

It really is a lovely game.

That's a lovely story LakieLady
I can relate to how the mother felt. The first time I saw my son compete at the national centre for his sport I was a snivelling wreck and it was only an under 12s event.

I'm not from around here, but I worked it all out after someone sent this in to me:

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

TMS was my childhood. It’s the sound of my parents’ house, and it even followed us on holiday to France every year via dodgy ariels trying to pick up the LW signal 😁
Love cricket just for the memories it gives me. I make my children listen to it now.

Yes, I’m Scottish so cricket isn’t a big thing here but one summer years ago I was off all summer and got hooked on The Ashes. So yes, now I do.

Yep! Played it in the garden (and brother's bedroom) as a child, and still play occasionally now. We have kids now so I suspect we'll play it even more in the next few years

Love cricket but didn't get into it until my 20's and boyfriend at the time explained it... I love the tactics so am a 5 day test fan really... love test match special and will listen for days .., but mainly international have been to quite a few matches... great days out and good fun.. even a flag wicket at Trent bridge!
Like rugby and football as well... and Olympic's but nothing is as tactical as cricket...
I can score ... but still get fielding positions the wrong way round..

@MrsMoastyToasty

It's the most boring thing to be televised. Footage of a field with blokes standing around in white clothes (totally impractical), then a microscopic ball in the sky. Then they go in for tea. They may come out again if it's not getting dark or if it's raining.

White clothes aren’t impractical. It’s a summer game. It gets hot. White is the coolest colour.

Flat wicket even... and yes to TMS on dodgy LW although now can stream on phone..

@FizzFan

Cricket is the second most participated in team sport in Scotland after football. There are more cricketers in Scotland per head of population than there are in Pakistan. Every village and two horse town has a pitch somewhere, especially up and down the East coast.

We're not 'cricket mad' to the extent that India is, but it's hardly a minority sport or not a 'big thing' here.

And yes, I'm cricket daft.

I understand the rules , I can watch and / or just listen and know exactly what is going on , where the fielders are standing etc but I do think it’s a game you have to really love to bother to get into it IYSWIM . The general rule in our house is that if there is cricket on any sports channel the TV will be on .

Yes I understand the rules. Best sport ever!

Why is it such a point of honour not to understand sports? I understand cricket because I played it from childhood, likewise tennis. I understand rugby because I enjoy watching it and it wouldn't be very interesting if I had no clue what was going on. I detest football but still understand the rules (including that rule, yes). None of it's exactly rocket science.

poor ds once asked how long tms was going to be on the radio... on the first morning... poor lad was not impressed at another 8 hours and four more days... lad.