Very Basics of Cricket: Pt. 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bailed

Although it is often a temptation to bail out when some of the faster bowlers are whizzing the ball down at 90mph or more, it has never been an official mode of dismissal in cricket. Three of the most common ways to be dismissed are bowled, caught, and stumped.

Answer: Grass

Cricket has always traditionally been played on a grass wicket (or strip or track as its also known), 22 yards in length, and rolled as hard as possible so that the ball bounces consistently. The outfield, usually in an oval shape, can be anything from around 60 to 120 yards distance from the wicket to the boundary.

Although some wickets around the world are made of astroturf, and beach cricket is a popular, fast growing version of the traditional game. The traditional surface has always been grass.

Answer: 6

A bowler will bowl 6 balls in succession to constitute one over. Some games are limited to a set number of overs (50 overs and increasingly, 20 overs being the more popular formats), whilst other games are played to set times, but an over still comprises of 6 legitimate balls bowled.

Answer: England & Australia

The first-ever Test cricket match was played between England and Australia in 1877, but it wasn't until 1882, and the 9th match played between both sides, that the concept of "The Ashes" was born. After suffering a damning defeat at the hands of the Australians, the England team were heavily castigated.

The day after the game, a notice appeared in the obituary section of the London based paper "The Sporting Times", which bemoaned the death of English cricket, and stating that "the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia". Thus was spawned one of the world's great sporting traditions.

Answer: Golden Duck

When a cricketer is out without scoring, it is said that he's "out for a duck", and if he's out on the very first ball he's faced, it then becomes a "Golden Duck". There are many theories abounding as to where the term "duck" originated, many of them highly amusing, but the accepted answer is the far more prosaic one that the figure "0" resembles a duck's egg. Why not an Ostrich, or an Albatross or even a Platypus' egg, I know not, but scoring a "duck" is something every cricketer hates.

It is a character building experience.

Answer: Leg Before Wicket

The "LBW" law is one of the most complicated in cricket. In basic terms, if the ball hits the batsman's leg, thus stopping the ball from hitting the wicket, the bowling team can appeal to the umpire to adjudge the batsman out. However, there are many small variances on the simple theory behind the "LBW" dismissal.

Answer: Winded Willow

It is not a pre-requisite to have a lovely pair of pins to field at Fine Leg, but you'll probably have to do a fair amount of running if you're fielding down on the legside boundary at this position. Second Slip and Silly Mid On are both close catching positions, near to the batsman.

The latter a few feet away, so you need to be a little bit silly to volunteer to go and field there. Winded Willow has nothing to do with Kenneth Grahame, cricket, or anything else.

Answer: Umpires

The oft maligned umpires have a very busy job of things. They must judge the legality of bowling activities, uphold the laws and spirit of the game, respond to appeals for the dismissal of the batsman, count the number of deliveries bowled, signal runs and wickets to the scorers, and countless other minute activities to ensure that the game runs smoothly.

The introduction of a "third umpire" in recent years in most "high profile" games, essentially to rule on television replays, has in reality probably put even more pressure on the poor umpires to be flawless in their decision making.

Answer: Green

Traditionally, a cricket ball's outer casing has been made of leather, dyed red. In recent years though, with the introduction of coloured clothing into some forms of cricket, a white ball has been used for better visibility against darker clothing, and against the night sky in floodlit matches. White balls lose their colour easily though, and therefore in 2008, experimentation had been made with a light pink cricket ball in England.

It remains to be seen whether this experiment will be more broadly adopted.

A green ball is unlikely to be tried though, unless a way of changing the colour of grass is found of course.

Answer: Garryowen

The "Googly", the "Chinaman", and the "Doosra" are all specific types of spin seen fairly regularly on cricket pitches over the years. There is no spin ball called the "Garryowen". That's predominantly a rugby term, when the ball is kicked high into the air.