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Your misconceptions about cricket

DeadBall

First Class Captain
Joined
Jan 26, 2018
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6,083
I was talking to a friend the other day and he said he hadn't realized that after an over is well, over, its the fielding side that changes sides and not the batsmen.

I could get where he was coming from as in my first couple of years of watching cricket (not in a stadium but on TV) and it mostly being ODIS, the part where the fielders changed ends was cut off due to commercials and when play resumed I thought the batsmen had changed ends as it sounded much more practical that one person went to the other side rather than the keeper, slips etc.

I also had another friend who would always get confused regarding a bowlers SR and Average and wouldn't be sure which meant wicket per runs and wicket per balls.

So what other misconceptions about rules, terms or cricket in general have you had about this complicated game.
 
I still don't understand how weather, clouds in particular, can affect the cricket ball
 
Swing bowling. I didn't understand the science behind swing bowling initially. Coaches often just tell you how it's done and not why it happens. I believed it was just about the technique. I learned the science behind it later at higher levels. And the exact laws of physics behind it much later :)

As a kid I had many misconceptions. The spring theory being one of them.
When I was a little kid, someone told me that there are springs in the bats of pro players, which is why they hit boundaries and sixes easily :)). And I believed him lol
 
Swing bowling. I didn't understand the science behind swing bowling initially. Coaches often just tell you how it's done and not why it happens. I believed it was just about the technique. I learned the science behind it later at higher levels. And the exact laws of physics behind it much later :)

As a kid I had many misconceptions. The spring theory being one of them.
When I was a little kid, someone told me that there are springs in the bats of pro players, which is why they hit boundaries and sixes easily :)). And I believed him lol

you were not the only one. it dates back to 80s. we all believed it at one time and i asked for it when i bought my first leather bat some time in 80s :). you can imagine the surprise on that shop owner face
 
I used to think that boundaries were much bigger in international games than they actually were. Later on when I realized that they were 65-70 meters , I was disappointed.

Also, when a batsman would get caught in slips, I would think he was trying to cut. Later on I realized that it is bowler who is swinging the ball taking bat's edge.
 
you were not the only one. it dates back to 80s. we all believed it at one time and i asked for it when i bought my first leather bat some time in 80s :). you can imagine the surprise on that shop owner face

Leather bats never had springs. Only the wooden ones did.
 
Swing bowling. I didn't understand the science behind swing bowling initially. Coaches often just tell you how it's done and not why it happens. I believed it was just about the technique. I learned the science behind it later at higher levels. And the exact laws of physics behind it much later :)

As a kid I had many misconceptions. The spring theory being one of them.
When I was a little kid, someone told me that there are springs in the bats of pro players, which is why they hit boundaries and sixes easily :)). And I believed him lol
I was told when jaysurya scored the fastest odi century against Pak he had springs in his bat and was later exposed they (I don't know who) broke his bat to discover springs.
 
Swing bowling. I didn't understand the science behind swing bowling initially. Coaches often just tell you how it's done and not why it happens. I believed it was just about the technique. I learned the science behind it later at higher levels. And the exact laws of physics behind it much later :)

As a kid I had many misconceptions. The spring theory being one of them.
When I was a little kid, someone told me that there are springs in the bats of pro players, which is why they hit boundaries and sixes easily :)). And I believed him lol

you were not the only one. it dates back to 80s. we all believed it at one time and i asked for it when i bought my first leather bat some time in 80s :). you can imagine the surprise on that shop owner face

The springs thing when I was a kid came from the cricket bat handles, the lines between pieces of the handle = springs

cane1.jpg


i.e. that's three springs.

With kids being kids, it probably went on a chinese whispers style journey to people hiding actual coil springs inside their bat.
 
you were not the only one. it dates back to 80s. we all believed it at one time and i asked for it when i bought my first leather bat some time in 80s :). you can imagine the surprise on that shop owner face

I was told when jaysurya scored the fastest odi century against Pak he had springs in his bat and was later exposed they (I don't know who) broke his bat to discover springs.

The springs thing when I was a kid came from the cricket bat handles, the lines between pieces of the handle = springs

cane1.jpg


i.e. that's three springs.

With kids being kids, it probably went on a chinese whispers style journey to people hiding actual coil springs inside their bat.

Well, we can't be blamed. It's just that our thinking was a bit ahead of our times. If spring mattresses are possible, spring bats should be possible too. Let's wait till the less intelligent ones figure out how to do it lol :snack:
 
Dunno if this counts, but when I was small, I thought that Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed were the best openers in the world.

This was a rather large misconception. :farhat
 
:)) omg i have also heard about the spring story
[MENTION=133760]Abdullah719[/MENTION] same thing. I once saw Imran Farhat bat in ICL, and taught how great it would be if he was playing for Pakistan.
 
I was talking to a friend the other day and he said he hadn't realized that after an over is well, over, its the fielding side that changes sides and not the batsmen.

I could get where he was coming from as in my first couple of years of watching cricket (not in a stadium but on TV) and it mostly being ODIS, the part where the fielders changed ends was cut off due to commercials and when play resumed I thought the batsmen had changed ends as it sounded much more practical that one person went to the other side rather than the keeper, slips etc.

I also had another friend who would always get confused regarding a bowlers SR and Average and wouldn't be sure which meant wicket per runs and wicket per balls.

So what other misconceptions about rules, terms or cricket in general have you had about this complicated game.

Your friend and yourself have never played a game of cricket for school or for a club?
 
When I was young I thought cricket was the type of sport old people play, like golf.
 
Your friend and yourself have never played a game of cricket for school or for a club?

For a school or club, no. As it was in Dubai and most of my friends and family were Arab so our main focus was football. We did play cricket in our garden though but that was just about putting bat to ball. I still remember how we used to choose the batting order, we used to write 1,2,3,4 etc but in random order followed by a line in the sand and then cover it with the bat and everyone chose a line. Another way was we used to get a person and form numbers behind his back (1,2,3 etc but again randomly) and he used to say out a name aloud and that was the position the person was assigned with.
 
When I was a kid, I thought Aamir Sohail was a better batsman than Saeed Anwar. Watching little bits in '92 he just looked so much better at the crease.

The misconception was cleared up when I started to see more Saeed Anwar and then the final nail in that shut coffin came in '96 Bangalore.

Since then I wish he wasn't so angry and mad because he could contribute something to the game aside from ensuring every syllable out of his mouth on cricket has the requisite amount of resentment.

My other misconception was that as a kid cricket was fantastic when it rushed by with chowkay chakke everywhere, it was cleared up by growing older and watching Test cricket.

Turns out that's the average cricket viewer agrees with kid me, as we bask in the first flickers of T10's dawn and slow dying years of Test Cricket.
 
If a ball is wide and over shoulder height (bouncer); is this classified as a no ball or wide?
 
When I was 8 or 9 - I was visiting Pakistan and my cousin told my eating roti nan all the time makes you time the ball better and get more power in your shots lol

Needless to say I adjusted my diet that very moment for the rest of that trip haha
 
I also never realized that many batsman take a few steps out of their crease when they are at the non-strikers end and the bowler is about to bowl - despite the risk of getting mankaded or run out if the batsman hits a straight drive and it hits the opposing wicket after touching the fielder. It is apparently done so that get a few steps advantage whilst taking quick singles.

I always thought the non -striker got runout because they were too lazy to put their bats down in time LOL
 
Dunno if this counts, but when I was small, I thought that Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed were the best openers in the world.

This was a rather large misconception. :farhat

To be fair both had a remarkable start to their career and that series against Bangladesh inflated their stats and our expectations haha

Things came back to reality after the friendship series against India. Whilst Hameed still did reasonably well - Farhat was all over the place and never the same since. Hameed's decline began when he got exposed during England's tour of 2005 and was caught fishing outside off stump too often. It was also his misfortune that he was part of the squad during our 2010 tour to England - suspicions were raised against him and it is no surprise that Hameed, Butt, Kamran Akmal, Umar Amin, Kaneria, Faisal Iqbal and Zulqarnain Haider have all never played a Test match ever since.
 
I had a misconception during school that the speed of medium pace bowlers would be like the ones we saw in school cricket. Later, one of my friend told me of his friend in Indore who they all thought was a very talented batsman since he was smashing every bowler in local cricket. That guy was sent to Achrekar cricket academy and made to face Agarkar I guess. He just couldn't sight the first 3-4 balls he faced.
 
I had this misconception that left arm leg spinners (chinaman bowlers) were banned in cricket. No one told me anything though, I just assumed as I never saw one in any competitive cricket...
 
1) boundaries in intl. cricket were a lot bigger. Reality was different.

2) swinging and seaming the ball is no big deal. Whenever i heard commenators praising someone for swinging the ball i thought whats the big deal in it? It was because during those day literally every team had bowlers who could swing the ball so i thought its easy.
 
I still don't understand how weather, clouds in particular, can affect the cricket ball

well if you are talking about how a cricket ball swings more under clouds then i think it's due to the change in air pressure because unlike reverse swing, conventional swing is made possible by disturbance in air
 
Misconceptions:
1. Swing and seam were interchangeable terms
2. Boundary was sooooooooo big
3. Given that I watched players regularly bowl 140+ on TV, thought that 120k was hardly anything - until I faced that in the nets
4. I had a ridiculously exaggerated back and across movement when I was 9-10, because I was trying to copy Dravid (pretty funny when I remember it now)
5. Sehwag was better than Sachin
 
I used to think the international pitches were so long that me and my friends wouldn't be able to get the ball to the other end. Now I had seen pitches before but I thought these are local pitches, international one are a lot longer.

I have also heard that spring story. Tendulkar used a coil spring and Ponting used a rubber core in his bat :))
 
Till the age of 15, and I'm still embarrassed at the memory, I thought a slow ball should be bowled by slowing the bowler's arm speed.
 
I had a misconception during school that the speed of medium pace bowlers would be like the ones we saw in school cricket. Later, one of my friend told me of his friend in Indore who they all thought was a very talented batsman since he was smashing every bowler in local cricket. That guy was sent to Achrekar cricket academy and made to face Agarkar I guess. He just couldn't sight the first 3-4 balls he faced.

Had same misconception about real pace. When I first got chance to bat against a 130kph Ranji reject I was pretty sure I could at least defend on matted concrete pitch. And I made mistake of telling him that. I regret that to this very day. Very painful.
 
I never noticed that both sides of the pitch are used for bowling. I thought it was only one designated bowling end. Hence, I never understood what the phrase "a change of ends" meant for a bowler.
 
I genuinely believed that no one match fixed and the conspiracy theories were just silly stuff made up by bitter ex-players who missed the gravy train of modern cricket.
 
As a kid, I used to believe that India can never beat Pakistan on fridays as Pakistan players get extra power after friday prayers.:asif
 
As a kid, I used to believe that India can never beat Pakistan on fridays as Pakistan players get extra power after friday prayers.:asif

This. I used to pray for a Indo Pak match to be on Tuesday. Extra power from Lord Hanuman and all that.
 
I also had the misconception that I was Akram reincarnate when I opened the bowling and got a couple of wickets on the cement pitch ground (Its Zabeel Park now) and the Mankhool Musallah. We also didn't change ends then, so I never knew.

Of course all my dreams were destroyed and I came crashing back down to earth when a semi professional club cricketer friend of mine who needed some batting practice hit me for 7 sixes and 3 4s in a row. The most humiliating part was it was just the two of us and I had to go fetch the ball after every delivery.
 
How tough even facing Ganguly level 125 to 130 pace is. It looks easy on TV...I am decent club cricketer...and I recently got to face couple of Ranji and an international bowler in boston ...40 year old Bangladesi Test veteran Tapash Bhaishya. God...it was incredibly fast....and dude hasnt played a game for bangladesh in like 10 years now. it was impossible to come into position and defend...Got hit as well. When asked he probably must be bowling inlate 120's or early 130's at the maximum. It was equally tough facing the ranji medium pacers. Cant even imagine how 150 is ! That day I have decided not to make fun of vinay kumar !
 
The umpires were part of a third team that was trying to win by getting the most number of no-balls/wides.



This was when I was like 6-8 years old and first started watching, pretty sure an older shararti cousin is to blame for this misconception.
 
How tough even facing Ganguly level 125 to 130 pace is. It looks easy on TV...I am decent club cricketer...and I recently got to face couple of Ranji and an international bowler in boston ...40 year old Bangladesi Test veteran Tapash Bhaishya. God...it was incredibly fast....and dude hasnt played a game for bangladesh in like 10 years now. it was impossible to come into position and defend...Got hit as well. When asked he probably must be bowling inlate 120's or early 130's at the maximum. It was equally tough facing the ranji medium pacers. Cant even imagine how 150 is ! That day I have decided not to make fun of vinay kumar !

Indeed, television really doesn't do justice to the speed of the game. You only have a split second to react.

You have to train your reflexes for years as a batsman and let's not forget as a fielder too, especially if you're a keeper, in the slips or close positions like short-leg.
 
If you look at bowling from above sight screen, it will look slow.
If you look at it from mid wicket boundary, then it will be seen in correct speed.
This is not a misconception.
 
If you look at bowling from above sight screen, it will look slow.
If you look at it from mid wicket boundary, then it will be seen in correct speed.
This is not a misconception.

Also regarding that. Is it sight screen or side screen?
 
When I was young I thought Lankans were on illegal drugs so they could bat for an hour after an hour and scored 500+ runs at will. And not get tired.

And they were smelling/licking in between the overs.

Later to realize that SL wickets were dead roads.

:ashwin


Also spring inside Jayasuriya's bat lol :jaya
 
Didn't know what was over the wicket and what is round the wicket! And which one is which oen if batter is right hand or left hand.
 
How tough even facing Ganguly level 125 to 130 pace is. It looks easy on TV...I am decent club cricketer...and I recently got to face couple of Ranji and an international bowler in boston ...40 year old Bangladesi Test veteran Tapash Bhaishya. God...it was incredibly fast....and dude hasnt played a game for bangladesh in like 10 years now. it was impossible to come into position and defend...Got hit as well. When asked he probably must be bowling inlate 120's or early 130's at the maximum. It was equally tough facing the ranji medium pacers. Cant even imagine how 150 is ! That day I have decided not to make fun of vinay kumar !

Lol so true.

But then if you manage to stay there facing 30 odd balls somehow, you can see ball as big as football, then reflexes come naturally.

But 120 km is faster than you think, correct.
 
Had the same problem. Still do.

Btw is it round or around the wicket?

Ok. Lesson 101

It's always the bowler's arm decide the side, nothing to do with batter. If the bowler is bowling with arm that is close to stump, it's over the wicket. If he/she bowls with arm away from stump it's round the wicket. This rule applies to both right arm bowler and left arm bowler.
 
Ok. Lesson 101

It's always the bowler's arm decide the side, nothing to do with batter. If the bowler is bowling with arm that is close to stump, it's over the wicket. If he/she bowls with arm away from stump it's round the wicket. This rule applies to both right arm bowler and left arm bowler.

Makes much more sense and well explained. Won't have any problems in the future.
 
As a kid I always believed batting second in ODIs would be much easier than bowling after having a lunch of biryani and naans.
 
Lol so true.

But then if you manage to stay there facing 30 odd balls somehow, you can see ball as big as football, then reflexes come naturally.

But 120 km is faster than you think, correct.

Having a bowling machine at Aberdeenshire cricket club when we were in the U16 team was fun. Up to 65mph was just about manageable but above was a struggle. 80mph was unplayable. Fun times.
 
Back in the glory days of the tri-nation tournaments, especially in the UAE, I used to be in awe of the king size cheques and huge looking "Keys" given to the MoM at the presentation ceremony.

Coupled with the fact that my own dad working in the ME and always hyped the obnoxious wealth and spending 9f the people there, I used to think that the cheques were so big because they were being paid so much money & they were being given monster trucks of some sort , hence the huge keys :)))
 
I actually believe that atul sharma was an actual player when he was first picked by rajistan royals :)))
 
I still don't know how batting averages are calculated as they don't seem to be taking normal average calculating methods into consideration.
 
I still don't know how batting averages are calculated as they don't seem to be taking normal average calculating methods into consideration.

BA = Runs scored divided by count of innings batsman had been dismissed (That's total innings played, net off Not outs).

If a batsman has a series like 128, 10, 38, 48, 58*, 0, 12 & 85*, 6 & 41; his average will be 53.25
 
My first realization of cricket was that Test cricket is not all about blocking - it really bluffed me first that why a batsman is blocking (& leaving) balls when actually entire field is open for him with 3 slips, gully, point, short leg, short squire leg and may be one at fine leg & one at short cover. It can't be incapability or for the sake of 5 days - then I really decided to learn why. Modern concept is that batsmen are told to do so (that's not to bat like Jacki Chan movie), which I found a bit childish.
 
BA = Runs scored divided by count of innings batsman had been dismissed (That's total innings played, net off Not outs).

If a batsman has a series like 128, 10, 38, 48, 58*, 0, 12 & 85*, 6 & 41; his average will be 53.25

Whats with the Not outs, how does that inflate the average.
 
Whats with the Not outs, how does that inflate the average.

It's basically runs divided by dismissals.

So Dhoni has 9912 runs in ODIs in 270 innings which comes to 36.71 runs per innings.

But his actual average is calculated by subtracting the not outs from the number of innings, so in this case, 270-77 = 193.

9912/193 = 51.35
 
It's basically runs divided by dismissals.

So Dhoni has 9912 runs in ODIs in 270 innings which comes to 36.71 runs per innings.

But his actual average is calculated by subtracting the not outs from the number of innings, so in this case, 270-77 = 193.

9912/193 = 51.35

But where did the 77 come from?
 
Ah OK, [MENTION=133760]Abdullah719[/MENTION]. He had 77 not outs. Ok now I get it, Thanks a lot.
 
It's basically runs divided by dismissals.

So Dhoni has 9912 runs in ODIs in 270 innings which comes to 36.71 runs per innings.

But his actual average is calculated by subtracting the not outs from the number of innings, so in this case, 270-77 = 193.

9912/193 = 51.35

However don't you think thats unfair to the top order batting line up, especially in a top heavy batting line up.
 
I used to be confused regarding Conventional and reverse swing. I used to think conventional swing was away swingers to the right handers while reverse swing was inswing to the right handers. I used to get so confused with inswing and outswing as they used to change with left handed/right handed batsman and bowler both. I started calling it left swing for away swingers to right handers, and right swing for inswingers to the right handers by a right arm bowler.
 
However don't you think thats unfair to the top order batting line up, especially in a top heavy batting line up.

It's the nature of the game I suppose, you have to balance out the different factors somehow.

Only a select few middle-order or lower middle-order batsmen have finished with an average that is highest than most top-order batsmen, namely Dhoni, Bevan and Hussey.
 
Who do outside edges usually fly to the keeper/slips while inside edges usually fall short? The angle?
 
Who do outside edges usually fly to the keeper/slips while inside edges usually fall short? The angle?

More than angle, it's the batting technique - most cases out side edges are when batsmen try to play a shot, therefore the edges carry, but most inside edges are when batsmen are beaten in line or tried to with draw from shot (loosens top hand). Even on bouncy tracks, top batsmen can adjust top hand, if they are beaten by an out swinger and that ball won't carry to slip, while every time a batsman edges down the leg while flicking with bottom hand edges actually carry to WK still on rise, similarly inner edge of a miscued squire cut reaches to WK on raise (unless the contact is too thick- but that's basic physics, we are talking about soft touches here)

Cricket is much more complex than banging couple of SIX and the skills/tactics of bowling is at least 3 times more complex to comprehend - that's the main reason T20 is so popular (not because of duration, still it's twice than a soccer game) - it doesn't challenge the mental capacity of a common viewer.
 
More than angle, it's the batting technique - most cases out side edges are when batsmen try to play a shot, therefore the edges carry, but most inside edges are when batsmen are beaten in line or tried to with draw from shot (loosens top hand). Even on bouncy tracks, top batsmen can adjust top hand, if they are beaten by an out swinger and that ball won't carry to slip, while every time a batsman edges down the leg while flicking with bottom hand edges actually carry to WK still on rise, similarly inner edge of a miscued squire cut reaches to WK on raise (unless the contact is too thick- but that's basic physics, we are talking about soft touches here)

Cricket is much more complex than banging couple of SIX and the skills/tactics of bowling is at least 3 times more complex to comprehend - that's the main reason T20 is so popular (not because of duration, still it's twice than a soccer game) - it doesn't challenge the mental capacity of a common viewer.
For me reading your posts is better than watching T20. It's like I am in a class at college and you are the Professor :hafeez

Really I wish commentators in Tests/ODIs analyzed the game in-depth like this instead of making random jokes all the time. :raja
 
For me reading your posts is better than watching T20. It's like I am in a class at college and you are the Professor :hafeez

Really I wish commentators in Tests/ODIs analyzed the game in-depth like this instead of making random jokes all the time. :raja

Most of them don't bother to enrich their knowledge, neither try to see finer side of the game - they are more showman than analyst - hope, I don't sound arrogant here, but that's the truth. Hardly any modern commi can speak 2 minutes on a young player these days and I can literally write their pitch report before toss - it's cut, copy, paste job. 25 years back, Richi Benaud was bold enough to tell what was a winning total of a particular game (for a particular team, against another team) - and he'll be 10/12 runs away at most.
 
'Pakistan me sab se zyada natural talent hai'

Then I grew up and understood the concepts of nationalism, patriotism, delusion, bias . . . xenophobia etc.
 
'Pakistan me sab se zyada natural talent hai'

Then I grew up and understood the concepts of nationalism, patriotism, delusion, bias . . . xenophobia etc.

Thats a misconception of life, not only cricket. Although we have all gone through it, hopefully you come out the better for it, which I think you will.
 
More than angle, it's the batting technique - most cases out side edges are when batsmen try to play a shot, therefore the edges carry, but most inside edges are when batsmen are beaten in line or tried to with draw from shot (loosens top hand). Even on bouncy tracks, top batsmen can adjust top hand, if they are beaten by an out swinger and that ball won't carry to slip, while every time a batsman edges down the leg while flicking with bottom hand edges actually carry to WK still on rise, similarly inner edge of a miscued squire cut reaches to WK on raise (unless the contact is too thick- but that's basic physics, we are talking about soft touches here)

Cricket is much more complex than banging couple of SIX and the skills/tactics of bowling is at least 3 times more complex to comprehend - that's the main reason T20 is so popular (not because of duration, still it's twice than a soccer game) - it doesn't challenge the mental capacity of a common viewer.

Hmm, you seem really down and more pessimistic recently. Whether its BDs bad run of late or not, I do not know. We have all gone through these phases and things will look up again hopefully. As for your claim about cricket just being about just banging sixes and a normal viewer does not have the mental capacity to comprehend whats going on, I think it's just nostalgia.
 
Hmm, you seem really down and more pessimistic recently. Whether its BDs bad run of late or not, I do not know. We have all gone through these phases and things will look up again hopefully. As for your claim about cricket just being about just banging sixes and a normal viewer does not have the mental capacity to comprehend whats going on, I think it's just nostalgia.

Did you really understood my post? Read again carefully - that'll keep me interested to read your posts.
 
you were not the only one. it dates back to 80s. we all believed it at one time and i asked for it when i bought my first leather bat some time in 80s :). you can imagine the surprise on that shop owner face

there was a rumor that Ponting had springs in his bat in 2003 WC final lol
 
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