This is my 2nd review in the Sports category after the Indian team review and this time I am going to talk of the most popular game in India - Cricket.
What is Cricket -
Cricket is a game played between 2 teams off 11 players each. But there is a difference between other team sports and cricket which is that in other team sports, all 22 players are in the field at the same time, but in Cricket, only 13 players are required to be in the field. 11 players of the Bowling side and just 2 from the Batting side.
Another difference between Cricket and other team sports is that it has various forms. The 2 most popular cricket forms are Test Cricket, which is played over 5 days and the One-day cricket which is played of a limited overs duration, usually 50 overs per team.
How is Cricket played -
Cricket, starts with the toss where it is decided which team would bat and which team would bowl. The 11 players from the bowling team, take their places in their field and the 2 batsmen from the batting team arrive. A bowler from the bowling team bowls and the 2 batsmen try and score runs off him. And, the fielding team tries to stop the run-scoring and take wickets. A batsman can also be out and then a new batsmen comes up from the batting team. When all 10 wickets have fallen, the innings is said to be completed. In One-day matches, the innings is also completed when the 50 overs get finished.
After the innings is completed, the roles get reversed and the batting side comes out to bowl and the bowling side goes into bat and tries to score more runs than the other team. In case of a test-match, there are 2 innings, so both teams are required to bat and bowl twice. In one-dayers, once the 2nd team, chases down the target or their innings get completed, either by getting all-out or having their 50 overs finished, the match gets over. In case of test matches, the batting team bats in the 1st innings and scores runs. The other team, then gets a chance to bat and scores their runs taking a lead(or a deficit), then the batting team bats again setting a target to chase and the other team tries to chase the target.
Cricket & its popularity in India and also Pakistan -
Now you would ask why cricket got so popular in India. The reason is that people in India like more action-filled sports and do not look at the duration. In cricket, the action takes place all the time in the form of run-scoring and in 50 overs, a team usually scores 250-300 runs. Indian people, like the big-hitting a la MS Dhoni. Another action, takes place in the form of wickets. The people in Pakistan got attracted to cricket as they found speed and the people in Pakistan, became interested in the bowling speeds of a fast-bowler, especially those who bowled over 155+ kph a la Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee and Shane Bond. Cricket, is usually a fast-paced, although a longer game as the action always takes place.
Besides the batting and bowling, action also takes place in fielding in the form of diving catches and electrifying run-outs. Also, the cricket-craze in India is so high that Cricket is almost a religion in India and some players like Sachin Tendulkar are worshipped as well. The shock of Indias failure in cricket is sometimes so high that some people break their TV sets and even commit suicide as well.
Bad effects -
As everything looks good, but still there are bad effects in everthing and the real bad effect came in the form of the match-fixing scandal, but it wont be too good to talk about it. The other bad(also good sometimes)-effect is that cricket is a highly addictive sport and if you play cricket for 1-2 days, you would like to watch and play cricket all the time, especially if you are from India or Pakistan.