Daily Times

The yorker went through the gate to take out off stump and send the pinch-hitter back to the shed for a golden duck. What an absolute jaffa!

Got that?

It all makes perfect sense in places like England, India and Pakistan, Australia and the Caribbean where cricket has a long history and a huge following. But if you’re scratching your head and wondering what that all means, then worry no Here, The Associated Press offers a casual watcher´s guide to cricket and what you might see and hear during the June 1-29 Twenty20 World Cup in the United States and Caribbean. Of the three main forms of international cricket, T20 is the shortest.

WICKET

The key word in cricket, with several different meanings (nobody said cricket was easy). “Taking a wicket” means a bowler – think pitcher – has got a batter out. Take 10 wickets and the innings is over. Modes of dismissal – when a wicket is taken – include bowled, caught, run out or trapped leg before wicket. Wickets also refers to the three wooden stumps at either end. Batters scamper between the wickets to score a run every time they cross over. The wicket can also be the 22 yards (20 meters) between the two sets of stumps. Expect lots of runs if you hear “good batting wicket.”

INNINGS

Each team (of 11 players) has one innings – not inning – at the Twenty20 World Cup. The captains toss a coin and the winner decides whether his team will bat or bowl first. There are a maximum 10 wickets in each innings before the team is all out and the other team bats. A scoreboard showing 150-4 means the team has tallied 150 runs and lost four wickets – four people have been dismissed out of a maximum 10. The higher the first number in a score like 150-4 (50 is very bad, 200 is very good) and the lower the second means the batting team is doing well. A 10-wicket win means a team has exceeded its opponent´s score without losing any wickets. Like a 6-0, 6-0 victory in tennis.

OVER

T20 World Cup games last 20 overs per team. There are six balls in an over. Not all teams use up all their overs, as they may lose their 10 wickets before the 20 overs have gone. Overs are also important in alternating the opposite ends from which bowlers bowl. When the over is, well, over, it´s the turn of the batter at the other end to face the next bowler. If no runs are scored in an over, the bowler is deemed to have bowled a maiden over. Then there’s the so-called death overs – which has come into cricket parlance with the booming popularity of T20 cricket. They’re the last couple of overs when batters take big risks everything to hit as many boundaries as possible.

BEAMER

The beamer is an illegal delivery where the bowler hurls the ball at the batter´s head without it bouncing. Rare, almost always accidental and, we´ve got to say it once in this guide, just not cricket.

BOUNDARIES

It´s 4 runs if a batter hits the ball beyond the edge of the field (the boundary) and 6 if he does it without the ball bouncing. At Cardiff´s Sophia Gardens, batters have hit the ball out of the stadium and into the adjacent River Taff. That´s no extra runs, but you don´t have to pay for a new ball.

BYE

Not a farewell greeting to friends but part of something called “extras” that increase a team´s score by at least 1 run. If a bowler is having a bad day, the extras´ total can quickly mount up. One of the extras is called a wide – where the ball goes so far away from the batter there is no realistic chance of hitting it, however long his arms.