Do Go On - Beginner's Guide to Cricket (by people who don't fully understand it)

Episode Date: August 23, 2020

After the episode about Sir Donald Bradman we've had a few listeners saying all the cricketing lingo was a bit confusing at times, so we've tried to explain the basics in this mini episode! There's every chance you'll get to the end of this and be even more confused, sorry! (PS. This is not an episode for people who know and love cricket, you will hate it!)Buy tickets to our streamed shows (there are 8 available, all with exclusive extra sections): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoonSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodCheck out our web series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2TuMQ31VXvqqEus9Bo6FZW-dDY5ukEuh Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-TopicTwitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everybody, Jess and Dave, just jumping in really quickly at the top here to make sure that you are across all the details for our upcoming Christmas show. That's right, we are doing a live show in Melbourne Saturday December the 2nd, 2023, our final podcast of the year, our Christmas special. It's downstairs at Morris House, which usually be called the European beer cafe. On Saturday December the 2nd, 2023 at 4.30 pm, come along, come one, come all, and get tickets at dogoonpod.com. Hi icons, it's Danny Pellegrino

from the Pop Culture Podcast, everything iconic, and I love Nordstrom. No place better to shop, particularly during the holiday season, because they have everything. They have holiday decor at Nordstrom. They have cozy cardigans from barefoot dreams, my fav, they have everything. They have holiday decor at Nordstrom. They have cozy cardigans from Barefoot Dreams, my fave. They have cold weather attire, party attire,

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Go to bombas.com slash acast and use code Acast for 20% off your first purchase. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbrodcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mites. Welcome everybody to a very special extra episode of Dugon. We're calling this one Who New With Matt Stewart. And this week we're talking about Cricket. This is Cricket the Basics for anyone who listened to the Bradman episode during the week and thought, what the fuck is he talking about?

We got a few responses like that anyway. We did, so maybe it's a good chance to go through it a little bit. One person in particular, sorry Jess. I was in the podcast and I was thinking what the fuck is he talking about? Yeah, that's true. But Kayla wrote to us on our Patreon group I was thinking what the fuck is you talking about? Oh yeah. That's true.

But Kayla wrote to us on our Patreon group in Facebook saying, I'd love to have a quick five minute rundown of how a test cricket works, what the rules are, and if there's any unique vocabulary that needs explaining. Great. Asked further like anything in particular, and she said mostly just the rules and an explanation of the important or unique terms and positions and scoring

which I guess is everything so that's not helpful maybe how the leagues tournaments work uh, should you want to know if there's minor leagues I can baseball and then uh, what the local international teams and that sort of things are and I think we can explain all that pretty quickly. Dave is also probably a bigger cricket fan than me actually. Is that true? Maybe we're similar. I think we're both sort of casual but grew up with it enough that we know the basics but I don't think either of us are like full fanatics. I've been to years in Virginia. I was the 13th man which is a made up position.

Yes, and I was off in the 12th man. Maybe that's something, maybe that's the first thing. Then teams are made up of 11 players. Knowing that Dave and I were 12th and 13th man, probably says a little something there. Basically, it means you are on the bench as the 12th person. You go in and you can replace the people whilst they need to take a person, get a drink basically.

While they're fielding, but you can't really bowl or bat. No, so you can't. Well, we should explain also bowling. Basically, that's like the pitcher. Yes. So in terms of baseball stuff, that batting is batting, bowling is pitching, wicket keeper is the catcher.

Yeah, basically like that. So the teams made up of 11 players normally, it's listed in terms of their positions at starts with the opening batsman. So they're two batsmen who are very good, but normally you'll have often have a combination of a left-hander and a right-hander, but that doesn't matter. Why am I making this more complicated than it's already But that's so that the baller has two different lines they have to bowl on this is not good I'm making it sound more complicated rather than less all right. Let's make this even more basics

Okay, so you got two really good batsmen at the start then you got the lower order batsmen's three and four middle order batsmen five and six Then normally you've got the keeper, who to play at a high level will also have to be a pretty good batsman, generally speaking, and then positions 8 to 11 are bowlers. And often they're not that bad at batsmen as well. The middle order can often have an all-rounder as well. All-rounder is what you call a player who is a very good baller and batsman. The cricket field, what they play on, they're big. They're bigger than a baseball field, bigger than a soccer pitch or a gridiron field. They're big ovals, the MCG, which is the big professional cricket ground in Melbourne. MCG stands for Melbourne Cricket Ground,

is 161 meters long by 138 meters wide, they're big fields. It's also what Australian rules football is played on cricket fields, which is no coincidence, they were cricket fields were the only things available for ball to be played on, so they've sort of just evolved into those pitches, those grounds.

The pitch itself, Dave, that's the center strip where the ball of balls the ball. Battsman stands at one end, the ball comes in from the other, runs in, balls the ball, bounces once on the pitch, and then the batsman can either hit it or leave it. If they hit it, they've got a chance to make some runs. If they leave it, it'll probably bounce through the keeper. If it hits their wickets, then they're out.

That's the equivalent of a strike in baseball. Only you don't get three options at it. You don't get three strikes in your out. If it hits the stumps, you're gone. So that's one ball and the ball goes back to the baller. They bowl again, same again. And that happens six times. The ball gets six balls and that's called one over.

And then the ball goes to another bowler, and they'll bow and over from the other end of the pitch to the batsman at the other end. So it all switches around the whole field does. Yeah, the pitch is about 20 meters long by three meters wide. And the pitch is basically just really shortly moan grass that's been rolled down flat. And the ball, we could also probably describe it's leather ball filled with cork, a cork center,

and then strings wrapped around it. It's fucking hard. It's a really hard rock hard ball. It has literally kills people very rarely, but sometimes it's fucking hard. It's a really hard rock hard ball. Yeah, it has it literally kills people very rarely, but sometimes it has that depth. Yeah. Yeah. So there's two kinds of bowlers. I guess if you're breaking down the bowlers a bit further, you got the fast bowlers and the spin bowls. The fast bowlers run in trying bowlers as fast as they can, you know, basically. And then the spin bowls are trying to make the ball move from off the pitch by just putting work on the ball, spinning it. The way I guess now we should talk about the game

a little bit. You've got two teams of 11. Normally there's a toss of the coin to start the game. The winner of the toss gets to choose if they bat or bowl first. And we're talking about Test Cricket mainly here. Test Cricket goes for five days. It's actually a huge advantage to win the toss, which is a weird thing about cricket.

The toss of the coin gives you a big advantage. And for the most part teams will choose to bat first, but it can depend on the state of the pitch and the weather and other things. But generally speaking, the team will bat first, I believe. And then they bat until they're bowled out, basically, and each batsman, if you're out once, you're out for the whole innings. How do you get them out, Dave? Either the bowler hits the stumps. Yes, so they're the wickets, the wouldn't little pillars that are nailed into the ground behind them. And if you basically, if the batsmen swings and misses,

or if you just beat them because you've bowled, touch a good ball that they can't hit it and it hits the stumps, then they are out. That's all right. So that's one way. The second most common way would be the batsman hits the ball and a fielder. So you've got one player in the fielding team's bowling, one's the wicket keeper, the other nine players are spread around the field. There's rules around where they're allowed to be, but basically they can be spread anywhere. And if the batsman hits it and is caught on the full by one of the fielders, including the the wicket keeper or the bowler, then they are out.

That's the second way you can be out. The third most common way would be leg before wicket, lbw. If the batsman is hit, where it's likely the bowler would have gone on to hit the stumps and they've blocked it with their leg or body rather than their bat, then that can be called out as well. There are intricacies around that as well where the ball pitches, but to put it basically, if you block the ball from hitting the stumps with your body and not your bat, then you can be called out leg before we get. In professional cricket though, do they not play one hand, one bounce? that, then you can be called out leg before we get in professional quick at

though. Do they not play one hand one bounce? That's right. That's more of a backyard rule generally. Or tippity. It's not that. Typically. Tippity run. It was a backyard rule where if you hit it, you got to run. Which is that's how baseball played, isn't it? Pretty much if you hit it into the field of play. Yeah. I think you get the choice to go. play, isn't it? Pretty much if you hit it in a field of play. Yeah, I think he hit the choice to go, oh, no. Whereas in cricket, you can, you can block it, just hit it,

right at your feet and not run. Um, and it test cricket, that happens a lot. Yeah, that's right. So it's a, it's really a, it's a much more of a battle of attrition patients, whereas there's shorter versions of cricket, like 2020 and one days where you're much more likely to see people go the and the the wicket without. Well, that's probably the fourth, most common way of going out is being run out. So if you hit the ball and run to the other end, and the fielding team gets the ball and knocks over the wickets at the end of your running towards before you get your bat

over the crease, the line to mark that you're in then you're out as well. But if you do make it in time, that's one run. If you run back again, that's two runs. You know, you run back and forth as many times as you can before they get the ball to the wickets, they all count as runs. But to get even quicker runs, you hit it all the way to the fence at the edge of the field or a rope if there's a rope that's been laid down. But basically you make it to the boundary, that's called four runs, a boundary. If you hit it over the rope or the boundary on the full at six runs, which is, you know,

your maximum score. Hi, icons. It's Danny Pellegrino from the Pop Culture Podcast, everything iconic, and I love Nordstrom. No place better to shop, particularly during the holiday season, because they have everything. They have holiday decor at Nordstrom. They have cozy cardigans from barefoot Dreams, my fave. They have cold weather attire, party attire, plus free shipping and free returns,

free store pickup. You can also purchase a recycled fabric gift bag so your item arrives festive and wrapped. So check out Nordstrom this holiday season, a one-stop shop. You can explore more at Nordstrom, in store, or online at Nordstrom.com. Holiday gatherings are happening. Stack on the sparkle this season with unforgettable jewelry from Blue Nile.

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National average 12 month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. This counts not available in all states and situations. I think that's, I mean, they're all the real basics, Dave. You think of anything else other than that? That's sort of thing. Just a couple of other terms where when we talk about Bradman winning getting centuries I used to scored a hundred of those runs and on the way there if you get 50 runs You call that a half century and yeah, he basically scored a hundred more often than anyone else Yeah, basically his career average was every time he bat or every time he went out he'd made a hundred so Crazy time he bat or every time he went out he'd made a hundred so crazy.

The average is how many runs you make per wicked per times you've been out. So you don't have to go out you can play and be not out at the end of an innings. When the team then changes over it once the team is bowled out or if the batting team declare and they say we think we've got enough runs which happens occasionally for time. They'll swap and then the bowling side will bat and every player on the team bats and then the batting side will bowl and then they'll switch again. And the general, you know, the simplest way to say is whoever has the most runs at the end of the each team having two innings, they win.

Yes, you both get to have a bat twice and it's whoever's got the most runs after two goes each. Basically. If you run out of time and and neither team one of the teams hasn't gone through and battered twice or made the amount of runs that the other team made in the four thinnings, then the match is called a draw and that happens a bit especially if if it rains and they lose time but the There's all these quirks that go along with it as well the longer the test goes on the pitch

itself the conditions of it all change it'll start cracking up which will make batting more difficult spin bowls will get more spin fast bowls will get more spin fast bowls will get more varied bounce which will be harder to play for the batsman Trying to think of any other terms when you say century people say ton as well. That's sort of a Like yeah, turn up um and when you get you when you get your 50 for your half century or 100 for your For a century or your ton

The batsman pauses usually takes the hell helmet off and holds up their bat and the crowd applauds to be if that's how it's like well done you've made it this far. Yes, that's right. Yeah, interesting. Is there anything else you think Jess we might have missed? Um, or anything, anything that you're like that's confused you as a casual observer. Well, how like, it seems like a game that can just go forever.

Like what's the type, like when you say in innings, there's no real time limit on that, is there? No, there's not. So sometimes, I mean, if you bowl them out quickly, it could be over very quickly. But in innings if the team's batting well, it should go they should bat for longer than a day in the first innings especially. And that so a day is three sessions two hours each. There's a lunch break after

the first session. Then there's a tea break after the second. It's a very civilized game. Yeah, it's so old school. I was reading a bit about it because I didn't really know about the origin but no one's exactly sure it came from but it sounds like it started as a kids game. Oh right. Like in the middle ages or some centuries and centuries ago. Oh wow. That's time not runs there. See this is where it gets confusing. The idea of a test match, the first one of those was played between Australia and England

in the 1800s, and it was played at the MCG, which I just only just found out. Oh, that's one thing I wanted to mention. Someone commented saying, what the hell are the ashes? Oh, right. You kept talking about between Australia and England. Long-running thing called the ashes. What are they, Matt? Okay, so you'd have put it very simply.

I actually think that maybe it would make a good do-go on report So I won't go into it too much But very simply it's the ashes is the competition between the Australian Test cricket team and the English test cricket team whoever wins it they get the ashes, right? That's what they're winning. That's the trophy But it began way way back when Australia beat England over there. And I think a journalist said, Australia is taking home the ashes of English cricket. Like, English cricket is dead.

And the Australians are taking home the ashes. And then the next time when the English one, someone gave the English team a little urn with these burnt bails and said, you've won the ashes back or something like that. Yeah, and they still play for a replica of that earn today that is what the ashes trophy is. Yes, the only thing I will say is the bales that you're talking about that are burnt. They're the little pieces of wood across the top of the wicket

that basically prove whether or not the ball has hit the stumps hard enough, hit the wood hard enough. So they took the little bales off the top and supposedly burnt them down and put them in the earn said these are the ashes of cricket and then every year wherever you couple is now England Australia play again and whoever wins the series gets to either win or retain the ashes. Yes. So when you retain the ashes you can win them by winning the five match series by just winning more tests to the other team obviously, or if you draw whoever has the ashes already,

they retain the ashes. And that's probably still kind of the biggest tournament in cricket is Australia versus England. It's certainly from an Australian cricket fans perspective. There's now one day World Cups, the shorter form of the game, and the 2020 World Cups are also huge, which England won last year. In very controversial circumstances, they beat New Zealand. New Zealand

were absolutely ripped off. But in terms of club cricket and how it compares to like mage leagues and minor leagues and baseball, that sort of stuff. For the longer form for test cricket, the entry level is you know your local cricket that sort of stuff then you've got representative cricket and then you get up to first class cricket. So in Australia that is the state competition. So if I was real good at cricket I'd end up playing from Victoria probably because that's where I'm from. And then from there, from that state level cricket, which is the Sheffield Shield competition in Australia, you get selected to play for Australia. And that's the highest level.

Playing for your country in test cricket, that's the highest level of cricket. The nations that have test match status in cricket, Australia and England of course and South Africa, the West Indies who are actually a multinational team, they make up, they're made up of a bunch of different countries from around the Caribbean including Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago on a bunch of others and they've been along a long been a power of World Cricket You've got New Zealand India another one of the major powers Pakistan Sri Lanka Zimbabwe Bangladesh island and Afghanistan there the only 12 test

Teams in the world then you've got other levels of cricket. There's to try and sex it up in the late 21st century they started. So 20th century they started playing around with the format. There's one day's which if each team gets 50 overs only and they just make as many runs as they can. There's a few extra teams that are able to play in that at the moment, including Scotland, United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Netherlands, Namibia, Amman, Papua New Guinea, and the United States of America. Then, even more recently, in the 21st century, they came up with this idea called 2020 Cricket, which is there's a lot more rules to make it faster and that sort of stuff and each team only gets 20 overs But the same matter players

So you basically go out and just hit and try and make as many runs as you can as fast as you can and there's world cups And what not for both of those competitions as well as with the 2020 there's a lot of sort of big money Competition around the world like the Indian Premier League Which will have players from around the world getting big, multi-million dollar contracts to play 2020 cricket there. In Australia, there's the big bash league, which is the equivalent of that, which is pretty big in the summertime.

Yeah, anyway, if you've got any other questions, let us know. I don't know how I will answer them. I don't think we'll do a second cricket explainer Who knew with must do it the clarification of But there's something that I thought maybe we could do every now and then Because this is sort of the who knew with Matt Stewart podcast idea of ad for while is just doing some Either idea topics that are too big or too small for do go on could do episodes about it separately. Um, little fact question. So maybe if there's any other questions, you've got, uh, yeah, tweet at me or something

and maybe we'll do some more of these mini episodes in the future. But it was interesting. I just, I mean, even just saying bales then that slipped right by without even thinking, hang on. Well, people who don't understand cricket aren't gonna know what Bales means. Yeah, they're probably matching Bales of Habeing, but yeah. Yeah, good point.

Cool, but yeah, that was fascinating and to find out that cricket is so little known by a lot of listeners. Yeah, totally. And thank you so much for tuning in everyone. Just what's, how do we sign off here at Who New It with Matt Stewart again? And like we always say here at Who New It with Matt Stewart, well now you know it, bye! I love it!

Later! Bye everyone! This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planet broadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you won't, it's up to you. Holiday gatherings are happening. Stack on the sparkle this season with unforgettable jewelry from Blue Nile. Right now, save up to 50% sight-wide with Blue Nile's Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Blue Nile offers an endless selection of bold gold styles, gemstone jewelry, and classic

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