Cricket

Cricket is one of the oldest sports in the world dating back to the 16th Century. The number of cricketers in the world, in terms of officially sanctioned ‘league cricketers’ is roughly 1 million, of which 800,000 are in England. In terms of ‘non-official’ cricketers, there are roughly 60 million, of which 55 million are in India. 

At BJS Cricket is played at lunchtimes and sometimes we take part in tournaments. Our sport head is Mr Evans and Mr Cantillon who organise the teams and take them to the tournaments.

Basic Rules of Cricket

1. Hitting the ball and running between the wickets and making it to the other end before the fielders can hit the wickets with the ball. …
2. Hitting the ball to the boundary along the ground is 4 runs.
3. Hitting the ball over the boundary without it touching the ground equals 6 runs.
4. There are eleven players on each team, a fielding team and a batting team.
5. After the batting team is all bowled out or the bowling team has bowled all the overs, the teams swap.
6. Each over is 6 balls.
7. There is an umpire on the pitch who is in charge of making sure the game is being played properly.
8. There are at least three forms of cricket: 1 day (each team plays 50 overs), test match (each team bats until they are bowled out or think they have scored enough runs and it is played over 5 days) and 20-20 (each team plays only 20 overs).

Useful vocabulary

• Ball – usually red
• Bat – used to hit the ball
• Wickets – the bowlers aim to hit the wicket to get the batsperson ‘out’. Made up of stumps and bails.
• Bails – small bits of wood which balance on top of the stumps and must be knocked off by the ball.
• Stumps – three sticks stuck in the ground-part of the wickets
• Field – where all the players are arranged to play cricket
• Over – 6 balls bowled by a bowler
• Runs – the points scored by each team
• Innings – the time spent batting. (In a test match, each team bats two innings. In a one day match, each teams bats for one inning).
• Umpire – the person who makes sure all the rules are followed correctly.
• Boundary – the rope that goes around the edge of the field allowing the batsperson to score 4 or 6 runs.