Cricket for those who might not know cricket yet
Latest Features
Minor League Cricket Week Nine Replay
I don't care what you did, Nosh Kenjige had a better summer than you.
He spent July hanging out with some of the top cricketers in the world -- Kieron Pollard, Nicholas Pooran, Rashid Khan, and Trent Boult -- as part of Major League Cricket's MI New York team. The squad won the league's inaugural championship and Nosh proved that he could hang with the game's elite; his 5.73 economy was the lowest in the league for anyone who bowled more than 15 overs.
But Nosh was just getting started. Instead of hanging out on the beach for the remainder of the summer -- like I would have done -- he rejoined the Dallas Mustangs for the third straight season. Two months later, he would again be hoisting some hardware. This time it was the Minor League Cricket championship trophy. And it's a trophy that the Mustangs wouldn't have won had it not been for Nosh's play with both bat and ball in the title game. (Read more...)
Minor League Cricket Week Eight Replay
After about 130 matches -- and a week's worth of eliminators -- it's down to the final eight teams who'll bang away in their quest for the Minor League Cricket championship trophy. The do-or-die nature of the eliminators brought out the best in a lot of players and teams and made for some of the most exciting cricket of the season.
In the Atlantic Conference, the Southern Division's Atlanta Fire guaranteed themselves another shot at the title as they took down the Ft. Lauderdale Lions. The Fire, who lost to the Seattle Thunderbolts in last year's final, got off to a solid start with knocks of 24 and 45 from Steven Taylor and the very, very recently acquired Lendl Simmons. It was a breakthrough 20-run 19th over with sixes from MiLC veterans Obus Pienaar and Corne Dry, though, that allowed them to post a 157 total. (Read more...)
The Rules
Not the 18th century "Laws of Cricket," but a quick way to understand the basics of the game and be able to watch either live or televised cricket as if you've been doing it for years.
Terminology
Cricket is famous for its jargon and terminology. Don't fret! I've come up with the 40 most used words and phrases that you'll need in order to watch, understand, and enjoy the game.
Features
My take on what's going on in the sport. Hopefully, it'll help you understand things a little bit better. If it doesn't, I apologize in advance.
About CricAmerica
Why an already really busy guy decided to devote a ridiculous amount of his time to watching, thinking about, reading about, and writing about a sport he only discovered a few years ago.
Most Americans have a preconception about cricket -- that it’s a complex and slow-paced, days-long game played in England by guys dressed in white. And while, yes, this is partially true, it's generally based on very limited exposure. (It'd be like generalizing that football is a game played only by giant, freezing guys in Buffalo and Green Bay.)
The fact is that cricket is just a really weird version of baseball. Take a big swig of NyQuil, go to sleep, and have a dream about baseball.
That's cricket.
Batters have to be a bizarre combination of Tuukka Rask, Ichiro, and Mike Trout. The guys throwing to the batters are not only gunning it at 90-plus mph, but they get the added advantage of being able to bounce the ball to further mess with the hitter. No one on the fielding team -- other than the guy that's essentially the catcher -- is allowed to wear a glove. (And the ball is even harder than a baseball.) Oh, and there's no foul ground. You can hit the ball anywhere.
A NyQuil dream about baseball.
Other than that, though, the rules are incredibly similar to baseball.
My goal for CricAmerica is to have you be able to watch, understand, and enjoy cricket. Your initial investment is minimal. Start with The Rules section and the Features section and then poke around the rest of the site, which is constantly being updated.
The return on your investment? The ability to enjoy the athleticism, excitement, and drama of the second most popular sport in the world.
More importantly, it'll let you pretend to work while watching the best players in the world square off live in an Indian Premier League game at 11:00 on a Tuesday morning.
