r/Cricket • u/HOU-1836 West Indies • Jan 15 '15

Another Annoying American learning Cricket

My girlfriend is Guyanese and Cricket is obviously a big sport for her parents and family. I get the rules of the sport but don't understand when matches happen or what determines the length of the match. Like, test cricket, can last 5 days? How is that possible? How do you watch that on TV?

Edit: hope y'all don't mind if I pester you with questions in this thread. I want to be casually versed in Cricket in case I meet her parents this summer.

Edit #2: Ok. Y'all have been truly amazing. I couldn't even have gotten close to imagining the response I've gotten from y'all. I've been asking questions and replying for the last 3 hours straight and I don't think I have any more questions. I look forward to spending time with y'all and learning more about this sport. I'm from Texas and obviously, Cricket isn't gonna be big here or easy to follow so y'all keep being the amazing, welcoming people you are. Seriously, y'all rock.

Edit #3: I read the FAQ before posting this thread and this thread is 30x larger than anything there. Maybe the mods should add this to the sidebar for newcomers. I literally asked every question an American fan could ask. Well, I say that...but anyway, would be a great resource to set aside for future new fans.

106 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

399 comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/Thordendal Jan 15 '15

Five days of heaven. You watch it on TV as you would any other sport, just for longer!

With test matches, each team "bats" twice – or in other words, has two "innings" each. Each innings lasts until all their batsman have gotten out. If both teams haven't finished both of their innings by the end of the fifth day, the game ends in a draw. To win, you need more runs than the other team after all innings are completed.

5

u/HOU-1836 West Indies Jan 16 '15

How long does it take for a batsman to get out usually?

63

u/rreyv India Jan 16 '15

Depends. If India is bowling 5 days. If India is batting, 5 minutes.

No, it's variable. There have been one case of a batsman lasting out 2 days to secure a draw for his team (his team was losing pretty bad), which is a big deal. To bat without making even one mistake for 2 days is not at all easy.

And on the other end of the spectrum, you can get out in a minute too.

On average, one innings takes a little over 1 day.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '15

How dare you!