h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, I bought this little book "Cricket" in London, it says most runs are scored in cricket as ones, twos, threes, fours and sixes. BUT, "... if the batsman strikes the ball and it hits a fielder's helmet which has been left on the ground - usually directly behind the wicket keeper - the umpire will signal that five runs should be awarded." My question is: How did the bookstore know I was an American and give me one of the "special" editions of "cricket"? Or ... did Calvin and Hobbes have something to do with developing the rules of cricket?

- Steve K.

Not even Calvin and Hobbes could have concocted something so
devilish as the tea interval.

The "tea interval", right. I recently read in the London Times on the Web a quote from a Mr. Davies, who had just bowled at Wantage Road (correct grammar?), "I'd only got two wickets before tea and I wasn't too impressed, but the lads told me to relax and bowl as I had been. I went back out and took four wickets for two runs". I was going to ask about the tea thing, but I was afraid it was some sort of religious rite. Even Calvin and Hobbes would find this a little odd, I agree.

- Steve K.

First of all, Steve, Cricket has Laws rather than Rules.

Secondly, the five-run rule applies to any piece of clothing not attached to a player: it's a very sensible rule in that a good shot could be denied runs by being stopped or slowed down by discarded vestments; it also creates the highly amusing spectacle of umpires laden down with an assortment of sweaters and sun-hats which is so much a part of the English summer (such as it is).

I don't believe Calvin & Hobbes could ever be quite as bizarre as the Marylebone Cricket Club sometimes manages.


The tea interval was created as a chance for the wives and girlfriends to become involved in the game by providing curly sandwiches and insect-laden buns to their loved ones. It has remained mainly at the insistence of Mike Gatting (England Captain c1986-1989), who needs to have his calorie intake topped up every two hours without fail, or his voice drops to a frequency where humans can hear it.

I feel much better ... I think. I was beginning to think cricket had somehow led to the fall of the British Empire. Laws, five-run rule, teatime, OK, no stranger than the infield fly rule, seventh inning stretch and the designated hitter.

I would love to hear some of the Marlyebone Cricket Club's bizarreness.

They allowed women to join

Women, huh? A couple of messages back, the women were "involved" in making sandwiches, but I gather you mean they are allowed to PLAY?!? Sheeesh, the UK is leading the US down the track, we have women BOXING, and kicking field goals, and ... and ...

But not baseball. Nope.

I do have to say I'm proud of the US women's soccer team, won the World Cup. Then stripped, sort of ...

- Steve K.

How about: They call it Leg Before Wicket, but it can actually be *ANY* part of the batsman's body.

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They killed my fishies!

Never mind the rules. The closest I like to get to cricket is hearing the reports on the news. Not that I particularly go out of my way to hear that either, but at least the news report is usually about thirty seconds long instead of several days or whatever.

Anyway, scoring: my main gripe against cricket, apart from the tediousness of it all, is that, when a layman like me hears the score on the news ("team X finished on 315 for 5 with team Y 280 all out" or something), all I want to know is WHO WON? I can never tell which team won!

Talk about being a layman, I am from Texas and was sitting in a pub at Covent Garden watching a live World Cup match as my first cricket exposure. They might as well have been talking Greek. My little Collins Gem book "Cricket" will rescue me, right? Wrong. The Glossary in the back does not include the term "over", for example. It does, however, tell me that a "Scorebook" is a book of printed forms in which the match is scored. I suspect a conspiracy to keep most of the world from knowing what is going on.

Cricket is really quite simple.

In a One-Day game, the 11 players in Team A have to hit the ball then run between the sticks of wood stuck in the ground 22 yards apart, in the time allowed, at least once more than Team B.

Team B tries to prevent this happening by dismissing Team A by a/ hitting the sticks with the ball, b/ catching a hit ball, c/ striking a part of the batsman's body if it is in front of the sticks.

In other forms of cricket the teams do this twice.

1. Thanks for correcting the Subject to "Laws"

2. Why did I pay a substantial sum for this book that doesn't tell me what you just did?

3. I still don't know what an "over" is. But the game sounds pretty simple, alright.

4. I especially liked the part in the book about the player who hit six sixes (the first time). I'm not sure baseball has an equivalent, it would be a home run every time at bat, I don't think that's happened in a game.

3. According to the Laws of Cricket (1980 Code) "The ball shall be bowled from each wicket alternately in overs of either 6 or 8 balls according to agreement before the match...Neither a no ball nor a wide shall be reckoned as one of the over"

4. I have heard that there was in fact one batsman who scored seven sixes in one over. He accomplished this by hitting a six on a no ball as well as each of the other balls.

Eight balls in an over? That's a new one on me. I thought it was always six... (That much I *do* understand).

My book has a chapter on The Ten Most Memorable Moments", the six sixes was by Sir Gary Sobers, 1968, repeated by Ravi Shastri in 1985. It does specify "a single six-ball over", implying there must be other kinds of overs, like eight.

Nothing about the seven sixes including a no-ball. That does remind me of a play I saw as a kid in baseball. The pitcher was intentionally walking a big hitter to get to the next batter - basically just lobbing the ball way outside, like a no-ball, I guess. Well, one wasn't quite outside enough, the batter knocked it out of the park.

Well, the seven sixes was in an ameteur game.

Amateur, right, I thought maybe it was recently, after my book was printed. I'm curious, tho, how often is even a single six scored on a no-ball? I assume its sort of a "free shot", i.e. if the ball is caught in the air, it doesn't matter?

To score a six the ball has to clear the perimeter of the field on the full. (without bouncing)

You can be run-out on a no-ball. If you are out of your crease (the area marked by lines in front of the wickets at either end) and a fielder/wicket-keeper hits the wickets with the ball you are out even though it was a no-ball.

Or if a fieldsman attempting to catch it grounds any part of his body on or over the boundary (he may, however, lean against a fence which is part of the boundary)

You can get out from a no ball in the following ways:
Striker: Hit the ball twice (doesn't count if the batsman is attempting to protect his wicket legally)
Either batsman: Run out, Obstructing the field or Handled the ball

To correct you, to be run out you must be out of your *ground* (according to the laws) i.e. no part of your bat or person is grounded behind the *popping* crease (there are four creases: the popping crease, which is, I think, four feet in front of the wicket; the bowling crease, which is to either side of the wicket; and the return creases (and their forward extensions) which are about four feet either side of the centre of the wickets with the return crease behind the bowling crease and its forward extension between the bowling and return creases)

Aaaagh - I was trying to keep it simple for our American friend who is a total novice in the arcane world of cricket technicalities