Cricket explained for beginners + my experience playing cricket games

[Martli]

#8603

So I thought I’d share this handy video which explains the rules of cricket to those who haven’t had the pleasure of growing up with this sport and can’t tell the difference between leg spin and silly mid-off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHGYzZ5e6as&t=28s

With that out of the way, I thought I’d share my (limited) experience with cricket games as a young lad.

My younger brother and I had Cricket 97, as a windows 95 title rather than a DOS one, and it proved to be hours of two player fun for us – using different parts of the keyboard rather than the hot seat approach.

The game comes with full squads for all the top tier cricketing nations, and commentary from the immortal Richie Benaud, who in my mind is the personification of the sport. The New Zealand squad contained all our cricketing heroes

I don’t remember a lot of the specifics, but I’d say there was a lot of losing on my part as my brother is immensely superior when it comes to video games. Our favourite thing to do was to ‘appeal’ every ball possible, even if it’s clearly not out (to those wondering what the hell I’m saying, basically to get a batsman ‘out’ you have to ‘appeal’ to the umpire to give him out. Without an appeal it can’t be made official). Small things amuse small minds.

I’m really interested to see how this game holds up, and how DOS implements cricket games in general. To my it’s not a game that lends itself well to video implementation in the same way as soccer or rugby might. I haven’t played any cricket games before or after that, so this will be a fun month.

[jadi]

#8610

Thanks for the link. I’m from a country with no Cricket & Baseball & very limited hollywood during 1980s. So never played cricket games. Also our introduction to concepts like Indiana Jones & Star Wars & Back to the future & … was through the games, and not movies. So it was always weird why I’m sword fighting with this strange sword with this guy in this scene and then in the next scene I’m a pilot in a spaceship 😀

[Tijn]

#8611

Thanks a ton for this explanation!

Don’t worry @jadi – I think very few if any of us know how cricket is supposed to be played lol

[TigerQuoll]

#8613

I sometimes joke that NOBODY knows the rules of cricket, because there are actually none – the whole game is just a giant prank played on the non-cricketing nations. The players are just making stuff up as they go along, and the commentators are deliberately spouting nonsense.

[Martli]

#8614

Just for total clarity – the video is very much a parody, playing on the theme of what TigerQuoll said above 😂.

I find that as a male in a cricket playing country it’s almost mandatory to have at least a basic understanding of the game and a few go to comments if you want to contribute to casual conversation, especially when games go on for 5 days and everyone in the office is following it on cricinfo. A few comments like “we really should have batted first, it’s a really dry wicket” will get you far in social standings 😂

Oh and Tijn, the Dutch cricket team is ranked 14th in the world btw.

[Tijn]

#8615

Are there 14 teams competing perhaps?

[king_kong_groover]

#8879

Dutch are pretty good to be fair! They beat South Africa in the last 50 Over World Cup (I went to see them lose to South Africa in the 20 Over World Cup earlier this year).

If I remember the games from the past, I feel it doesn’t hold up purely because of the pace of the game, and the ones that tend to do better are the management and strategy ones, though you need a Wisden Cricket Alamac level of understanding the games to enjoy them.

Although not DOS, the later Cricket games by Big Ant hold up pretty well, purely because you’re not doing some waggling of the joystick to get spin or fast bowling, and hold your hand when it comes to shots and bowling, so it’s more accessible.

* Cricket have 3 World Cups. Best not to ask.