Cricket

I love soccer although not so much for baseball. So I'm boring during pro-baseball season. Almost all radio stations in Tokyo broadcast baseball game every night. Even Public TV covers all games of Inter highschool baseball tournament every spring and summer break.

So you may ask me "Are you completely anti-baseball person?" The answer is "No". Actually, I was huge fan of local pro-baseball team in my youth. I used to supported a local high school team in the baseball tournament. I remember I played baseball even in the hall way of junior high school with classmates. I hit the soft tennis ball by arm and slid into the math text book as a base. I was belongs to kids baseball team too. Maybe I don't hate baseball, but I'm so tired of no-change situation around Japanese baseball for more than half century . After all, Japanese cannot live without baseball. However we have to remember our standard isn't always international standard. Baseball isn't well known sport everywhere.

Now here is today's subject "Cricket", another ball game. The playing populations over the world is the 2nd after soccer. Cricket is more popular than baseball. The England originated sport is played all (ex)Commonwealth countries. Of course, Bangladesh or India isn't exception. Boys play cricket here and there. It's same to us getting start play baseball at any place in my childhood.
Cricket looks alike baseball. Batsman (Batter) hits the ball which was pitched by Bowler (Pitcher) with oar shaped bat. "Is it root of baseball?" But there is no conclusion for the definition.

However once I look up the rule of cricket, I found the big difference over baseball. In cricket three stumps called wicket is used as a base of baseball. In stead of four bases of baseball, the wicket is set on two places in the field. One is behind batsman, the other is near bowler. A bowler pitch the ball with long run-up. It doesn't matter the pitch is no bound or bound. "Oh, Such a hard pitch must be harmful for the bowler's shoulder" I thought. But don't worry. A bowler changes every six pitches in rotation, I heard.
"The pitch hit the wicket behind the batsman" or "Hit ball was directly caught by fielder" is batter's out. So the batsman has to hit or cut the ball to avoid the pitch hit the wicket.

On the offense, next batter settled on the bowler side wicket as a runner from the beginning, like bases-loaded in baseball. When the batsman hit the ball, the both player run toward the wicket on the other side each other. One runner replacement on the wicket becomes one point. Changes every ten outs.
Cricket is played in the middle of the oval field. It means batsman may hit the ball to the any direction, even to the backward. Eleven fielders, include bowler and wicket keeper, catch the hard hit ball by hand, without glove. These part are difficult to make sense for baseball person.

Once I got the little knowledge about cricket, I got to understand the scenes which I actually met in Bangladesh. I often saw three standing wood branches were left on the empty field. I call it "Evidence of cricket game"
Young guys interrupt the game and come up to me with bat. Then they pose at the middle of the bat swing and say "Photograph now!"

Maybe there is a person who bore with the cricket game broadcasting like me. By the way, does the cricket have "Hall of Fame" or "Player of honor"? Is there super star of cricket? Then I feel like I found the new continent.