Wednesday August 6
Overs and Unders
I just spent a delightful weekend in London, but I've got to admit that Cricket -- which was featured all weekend on SkyTV sports -- has me stumped. 
The game itself seems easy enough to follow, but scoring is an absolute disaster. What in God's name is an "over" and how does one know when a match ends? The BBC explains that "When all the batsmen are out, the team is all out, apart from one batsman who is not out." Huh? Here's an example from today's UK Guardian, discussing the retirement of the legendary English "cricketer" Darren Gough after a failed return from injury:
Two years are a long time to be away from Tests, and the restriction placed on him by the knee meant that the snap and zest had gone from his bowling. He tried his hardest but a single wicket at a cost of 215 runs was his only reward for 53 overs of effort against South Africa.
Now that's a mouthful. The Brits complained about US Football having lots of arcane rules, but in contrast Cricket seems to have none.
Posted by glenn at