Cricket is a beautiful "bat and ball" game. And with an estimated 1 billion fans worldwide, it is the second-most popular sport in the world behind soccer. To the uninitiated, however, cricket can seem like a far-away universe.
One day, you score a hundred, and in the next game, you go for a duck.
One day, you take five wickets, and another, you concede 100 runs without bagging a scalp.
One day, you make a stunning catch, and the next, you make a simple drop that decides the fate of a match.
The uncertainty is why so many people love cricket. But if you're not one of them, and all of this sounds like a incomprehensible foreign language, we're here to help.
Before you can play or follow cricket, you first need to understand it. Here is a primer, so you, too, can begin to enjoy this global game.