as in the australian rock/garage land/punk band?

look at those pictures, patrick its not that hard to learn, though the explanation of cricket is more confusing than actually playing or watching it. here's an explanation.

"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game"!

Yes, Its an oldie but its a goodie!!

Never gets old.

Cricket isn't actually a very difficult game to understand, no idea why it has such a reputation as being so.

Yes, it has some funny technical terms like "googly" "silly mid off" and "whipping the bails off" but you don't need to know them to understand the game at all. It's a pretty basic game to understand at its heart.

Also, I realise how much I've neglected this thread recently. Is Mint still being his hilarious self?

It's pretty difficult to grasp in passing. 40 years later and my dad still doesn't understand "pitching/hitting in line" depending on leg or off side.

i think some of the terminology has people confused more than anything, perhaps dumbing it down in simpler terms may help, i dont know, its just all second nature to me. trying to explain the terminology is even harder sometimes. but as avery said its not a difficult game but people think it is and give up on it, they just need to persist with it.

Exactly. Cricket has an awful lot of odd terminology and specialist jargon and I think that's what makes people think the game is more complicated to understand that it actually is. Most of the jargon isn't really essential to understand the game though and you tend to pick it up as you go along.

I can't quite grasp cricket and all of it's appealing nuances and idiosyncrasies, but it's not *that* hard to understand basic rules/objectives. I can't get over how uncomfortable some of those swings look, though!

We prefer to call them strokes

The best thing about cricket are it's nuances! Like the fact you can get out 11 different ways but only 5 are common, 1 is rare and the other 5 have happened less than 10 times in international cricket (some of them never and only a handful of times in first class cricket).

Some of the fielding positions, names of spinning deliveries and batting strikes etc are hilarious. In one match, one player could conceivably keep wickets, be a nightwatchman, meet Ricky Ponting, get stumped from a wrong'un, concede a follow on, pull a long hop, reverse sweep a yorker and field at silly mid on, long off, square leg, slip, third man, extra cover, gully and point! It's all very imaginative. Like the sporting version of a fantasy novel.

Plus having all these silly words to make it confusing keeps all the riff raff out of the game. Like most soccer fans and Americans.

absoluetly agreed mint, the ridiculous vernacular keeps the average fool away from the game, and allows for such geniuses as the 12th man (went for a slash just outside the off stump, mistimed and ended up dribbling down his legside, you cant do that in international cricket!.. the bowler asked for a short backward square, david boon, the 5'2 tasmanian with the flared pants was the perfect choice!...etc). in fact i probably derive more pleasure talking about cricket antics and jargon and associated repartee than the actual game itself most of the time

that's probably right, not many of our american friends on here would even attempt to look or understand it, though i think they would grow to like t20 if given the chance to watch it live?

the stroke play is more elegant and skillful than say baseball, its just a matter of understanding why a batsman plays a certain stroke or shot. paulie just out of interest (and dont look it up) do you know what a leg spinner is?

Well twenty20 has followed a pretty American model with the team names, cheer leaders, music during games etc so maybe.

But it'd be hard for it to take off in America simply because of a lack of oval stadiums! Even if the ICC or IPL or whoever wanted to take a big, showcase event to expose the sport to Americans, where would they play it?