Cricket for those who might not know cricket yet
Latest Features
The MLC Original Six: What's in a Name?
After two years of Minor League Cricket, Major League Cricket -- the most high-profile professional cricket league in US history -- is ready to launch this July. Overall, fan interest, both here and internationally, is uniformly high as cricket fans around the world want to see if the US can become a serious player in the franchise T20 world. Oddly, one area where folks here are showing the most concern has pretty much nothing to do with what happens out on the pitch. A lot of controversy has popped up over some of the names of the six teams that will compete in the league's inaugural season. (Read more...)
The State of the Union's Cricket
As talk of World Cups and new professional leagues slowly put cricket on the radar of sports fans in this country, it's a good time to ask: just where does cricket in the US fit into the overall jigsaw puzzle of international cricket? In some ways, cricket in this country is at its most optimistic peak. There is more press -- both domestic and international -- being generated about American cricket than there's been in probably a hundred years, but there are still some jagged edges about the game here that will need to be smoothed out before the US can consider itself a top-flight player on the world stage. (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 on the planet while also learning about history, politics, and other cultures.
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.
