Honorius wrote:Nadal is just awesome. He's so good that even though he's a rightie, he plays with his left hand just so he can use his right hand for his backhand.

People do that in sports. I'm a rightie but I always bowl with my left hand (in cricket).

Cricket?
Never could understand it.
It's like there's a rule - if you grew up with it, you're fine. If not, you're screwed.

Could not agree more. Even Wikipedia doesn't help in this case.

A brief guide to cricket for the uninitiated (paraphrased, I believe from Douglas Adams, because I couldn't find the actual quote):
Two men walk out into a field and each place three vertical sticks in the ground with two smaller sticks balanced on the top. The two sets of sticks are 22 yards apart. The two men then turn to 22 other men stood on the side of the field, at which point it starts to rain.

Funny! And true too.
Do you watch cricket, Sent?

Nope. I have only a fairly basic grasp of the rules and have never found the game interesting (but then, that goes for almost all sports..).

Still too complicated. I need it boiled down to one sentence. Like for tennis:

2 guys with rackets whack balls across to each other over a net.

A bloke throws a ball at another bloke stood in front of three small posts holding a bat, who hits it away towards ten other men who attempt to return the ball to the three small posts, while the batsman and another batsman at the other end of the pitch next to three other small posts run up and down.

I'm afraid that's about as simple as I can get it..

So, to Americanize it, it's like baseball + track. Kind of. Slightly?

Ahahha, nicely done, both of you.
Sent's description helps, but it's still rather complicated.

Yeah, sort of like baseball, except there's two batsmen on at once and rather than running around the posts, you're running up and down the pitch, trading places with the other batsman. And you're out when the ball hits the wicket (that's the collection of posts I was talking about), either because you miss the ball with the bat, or because the fielders get the ball back to the wicket while you're still running up and down the pitch.

The batsman can get out in 10 ways (as far as I know), not just the 2 you mentioned. If a fielder catches the ball (hit by the batsman) before it falls on the ground, you get out too. Also if your leg is before the wicket (that's the 3 'posts'). It would take me a really long time to describe the other 6 ways, so I'm skipping it. But these are the common ways.

I was trying to keep it simple for the uninitiated Americans.

I knew about catching out and LBW, but six others? Dear gods. (Actually, I just looked it up on wikipedia and I did know a fair few of them, and the others are fairly logical..) I also have only a fairly basic grasp of the overall match structure.
Arcane game..

...

I think I'll just stick to baseball + track.

Sentynel wrote:Arcane game..

Knowing that Britishers ruled over large parts of the world once upon a time, it's amazing it's arcane. But after all, it was a long time ago....Mightbe that's why cricket is still famous in the subcontinent; the Britishers ruled over them till as late as 1945.

Yep.
Sun never set on it, did it?
Ah well.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:Knowing that Britishers ruled over large parts of the world once upon a time, it's amazing it's arcane. But after all, it was a long time ago....Mightbe that's why cricket is still famous in the subcontinent; the Britishers ruled over them till as late as 1945.

I'm a Brit and played it regularly every summer for years at school and don't understand it..

Amazing...how can you play a game every summer & yet not understand it fully? Something wrong with the game then....

I mean, I understand the basic rules, but the match structure and advanced rules are completely beyond me..

Another arcane game is curling. These Non-Americans and their silly little sports.