Cricket for Dummies

Before you go any further, no, this article is not about the insect cricket, it’s about the game cricket! If you have never heard of it, please continue reading, you may find an interest in it. Cricket is a very popular sport, in Asian countries especially. It was originated in England and became well-loved in India. DSU is excited to have our own Cricket Club.

Trojan Times spoke with the founder of the club, Rajesh Gadu, to give a bit of insight into the club here. “I founded this club in 2018 with some of the other students back then. Cricket is really big in India, and most of us start playing cricket when we are 6.” Of course, as the entire world had issues because of COVID-19, so did the Cricket club. “DSU provided funding to buy equipment and supported us, [but] it was a tough last two [years] with not many international students arriving because of [the] pandemic. We managed to keep the club active and conducted tournaments in Madison every year with necessary precautions.” Thankfully the club is still active and would love new members! Gadu says, “If you [enjoy] hitting or watching a ball for a home run in baseball, you would automatically love cricket.”

Interestingly, according to the current captain of the cricket club, Phani Reddy, parts of baseball were derived from cricket. Reddy is a first-year student here at DSU and gave us an overview of the game. “Cricket is played on an oval; grassy field. In the middle narrow strip, called the pitch, with the wooden wickets [at] either end. A cricket match is played between two teams of 11 players each.” The objective of the game is “to score more runs than the opponent by hitting fours, sixes and running between the wickets to win the match.”

Wickets are 3 thick, wooden sticks that the batter will try to hit once the ball is thrown by the bowler. There are wickets on each side of the pitch. If the ball hits the batter’s wickets, then that batter is out. According to an article from The Washington Post, in order to trade places with his teammate at the other end of the pitch, the batter must hit the ball after it bounces once.

The article also states how runs are scored. In order to get the most points the batters run back and forth between wickets how ever many times they can before the fielding team gets the ball or throws them out. A team can also score more points for hitting the ball the farthest.

Here are some basic rules Reddy informed us about:

1. Hitting the wickets when the ball is bowling is called out.

2. Catching a batsman’s shot on the full is out.

3. Hitting the batsman’s leg in front of the wicket is called as LBW (Leg Before Wicket)

4. Hitting the wickets before the batsmen can run to both end of the pitch is called as out.

5. Hitting the ball to the boundary along the ground is 4 runs.

6. Hitting the ball over the boundary on the full equals 6 runs.

7. Every 6 balls [thrown] makes an over.

8. Ruling of umpire is final.

The cricket club have matches scheduled for every Saturday and Sunday of this month. They also were able to buy Trojan team jerseys! If you would like to learn more about cricket club or would like to watch one of their matches or practices, contact Phani Reddy by email at [email protected]