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Cricket a big sport in other countries, but slowly catching on in the U.S. By
Michael Sloniker As the sun shone down he ran across the lush green grass with the white sphere cradled in his right hand, his beige long sleeved shirt blowing in the breeze. With a hop he comes to a stop, his right arm swinging in a windmill motion as he sends the white sphere hurtling through the air where it is met with the crack of wood abruptly sending it back from whence it came. For many people in the United States, quite possibly their only experience with cricket is an American Express ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld, in which he is performing a standup comedy act in England using phrases common in the United States and receiving no laughs. He then goes around the country learning the terms of the British, including a scene, which features a cricket match at which he utters the line, "That was a wicked googly." A googly is a type of pitch that is distinguished by the rotation of the ball clockwise from the point of view of the bowler. Cricket in the United States is often played by those who grew up playing it in other countries such as New Zealand or India where there are professional cricket leagues. Tony Butler is one such person. Butler, a native of New Zealand currently traveling through the United States, has played cricket for 20 years. At the age of five, a friend whose father was a coach introduced him to the game and Butler has been playing ever since. Butler basically plays for the camaraderie. Like many team sports in the United States, when you spend a lot of time with the same people you develop great friendships with them. "I love the team environment," Butler said. The game itself is a fairly simple one. There are two wickets, which are made up of three stumps or poles placed in the ground so that the ball cannot pass through them. The wickets are placed 20 meters apart. In front of each wicket stand the bowler and the batsman. Similar to baseball, the bowler throws the ball to the batsman. However, there is a slight twist. The bowler must throw the ball in a circular motion with his arm not bending at the elbow. The bowler then tries to hit the wicket where the batsman is standing while the batsman's job is to protect the wicket by hitting the ball. If the bowler successfully hits the wicket, the batsman is out. The batsman uses a bat of wood that resembles the elongated paddle of an oar attached to the handle of a tennis racket. Each batsman has a partner standing at the other wicket. When the batsman hits the ball he runs to that wicket. The partner then can run to the wicket the batsman hit from. If done successfully they have completed one run. They continue to do this until one of them is out. Then the third man in the team's lineup comes and the process is repeated again until one of the two is out. Then the fourth man comes up and so on until 10 of the 11 men in the lineup are out. This is called an inning. Then the other team repeats the same process. This process can lead to some high- scoring matches by U.S. standards. During play, one other player stands at the wicket with the batsman. This player is called the wicket keep, which is similar to a catcher in baseball. The wicket keep is the only player on the field permitted to wear gloves and external leg guards, which are much like the shin guards worn by a catcher in baseball. The wicket keep's job is to catch any ball that doesn't either hit the wicket or is put in play by the batsman. "This is one of the best parts of the game," Butler said. "The wicket keep is involved in almost every play of the game, whether it's catching a batted ball or receiving a throw from another fielder." The wicket keep is one of 11 fielders, including the bowler. Unlike baseball, the fielders, except for the wicket keep, do not wear gloves, they field balls with their bare hands. Players, both fielders and batsmen, dress in varying combinations of T-shirts and over-shirts with trousers while some add sweaters to the ensemble. On their heads are baseball style caps, with the batsmen wearing helmets. Many complement their attire with wristbands. There are two types of matches in cricket, differing primarily in length. The first kind is the test match. A test match is played for five consecutive days for about six to seven hours a day. The other type of match is the One-day International. The one-day match, as you can imagine, is played in only one day with the match lasting about eight hours. The length of the matches is one of the main reasons the game hasn't caught on more in the United States, according to Butler. "Watching a match on TV is kind of boring unless you're really into it," he said. Unlike Major League Baseball where a batter charging the pitcher after having been hit by a pitch seems to be commonplace, there are very few fights where the batsman charges at the bowler, said Butler. "The main confrontations are between the bowler and the batsman," he said. "But they hardly ever come to blows." While cricket is not a very popular sport in the U.S., there are places you can go to play it. In Utah, the Salt Lake Cricket Union plays during the summer. If you are interested in learning more about this group it has a website at www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Park/5310/. The group was founded in 1984 and has played teams from all over the U.S. In 1996 a team from Los Angeles called the L.A. Krickets came to Salt Lake to play. The Krickets were made up primarily of ex-convicts who learned the game as part of a program to re-launch them back into society. In true L.A. fashion, the Walt Disney Company came close to signing a deal to make a movie about the Krickets. In the game Salt Lake won 183-142. Ultimately, cricket is a game that may one day catch on in the U.S, but it might take a movie about a bunch of convicts to do it.
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