Welcome to cricket 101 where myths such as stopping for tea and drawing a five-day game, are either confirmed, or busted. Find out why death bowlers are good, the Devil’s Number is bad and why the star-studded Mumbai Indians might flop at this year’s IPL.

Cricket can be regarded as one of the weirdest and most out-of-touch sports out there. But with a colourful history, fascinating terminology and a series of quirks only the English could come up with, it’s also one of the most popular and fascinating. As you’re about to find out.

For many who don’t understand it, cricket is a somewhat ridiculous sport with truly bizarre rules and archaic conventions that have largely remained unchanged since the game was invented in the late 16th Century.

Let’s ‘open the innings’ (there’s your first cricket-specific term for the day) with a look at whether some of these views about cricket are true, partly true or complete misconceptions. As a cheesy gameshow host wearing an unfashionable bow tie and sporting an even more questionable coiffure might announce: Let’s play… cricket myth busters!

“They stop play bang in the middle of the game to drink tea”

In the longer formats of the game, such as Test cricket and First-Class cricket, which can last for five and four days respectively, play generally starts at 11 am and ends at around 6 pm.

Now, that’s a pretty long day out there, especially if your team is fielding and the blazing sun is out, something that happens on average once a year in cricket matches staged in England.

So, in addition to two or three quick drink breaks to ensure players stay suitably hydrated, they also stop for lunch at 1 pm for 30-40 minutes and at around 3.30 pm for a 20-minute tea break.

That said, with so much emphasis put on fitness, conditioning and recovery, it’s probably more likely to be an energy drink and a protein bar than a cup of tea and an egg and cress sandwich these days. But the latter are still there and available if the players want them.

Other shorter formats of the game don’t have a scheduled tea break.

Verdict: Partly true.

“A match can last five days and still end in a draw”

Test cricket is the purest, most intense and hardest format of the game, hence the presence of the word ‘Test’ in it. It tests your skill, technique, stamina and mental strength and has destroyed many men and their confidence over the decades.

It’s also the longest, lasting up to five days. For a team to win the Test, they need to bowl out their opposition twice and also score more runs than them in the process, in the one or two times they bat themselves.

However, it can happen that after five days of play, a result isn’t possible, leading to the two captains shaking hands at the end of proceedings and settling for a stalemate.

The major reason for a Test match draw is the weather. Cricket isn’t played when it’s raining, so if a considerable number of hours of play are lost to rain, there may not be enough time for one of the two sides to win the game.

In other circumstances, the wicket, the patch of grass that players bat on can be too favourable towards batsmen, making it hard for bowlers to take 20 wickets.

Either way, playing for five days and sharing the spoils at the end of it is by no means a waste of time. Some of the most thrilling ends to a Test can come when one team is trying to force the win, while the other is trying to hang onto a draw for dear life.

Furthermore, for a big underdog like Afghanistan, a draw against a big favourite like India or Australia can almost feel like a win. Not to mention there’s a World Test Championship in place all the time, so any points resulting from a draw can be extremely precious.

Verdict: True

“They all play in white, making it impossible to know who is on which team”

Once again, this is true of Test cricket. When the first international game of cricket was played – bizarrely between the USA and Canada but there were good reasons for that – almost 200 years ago, all the players wore white and that’s how things have remained to this day in that format.

In limited-overs cricket – where the batting team faces a finite number of balls per innings rather than just batting until they’re all out – the players wear different coloured kits, known as pyjamas. So, you’ll always be able to tell who is on which team, like in a football or basketball match.

That said, there are ways to distinguish between the players wearing white anyway.

They’ll have their country’s symbol near their left shoulder and these days will also have the logos of team sponsors on the front of their shirts, which will differ from one team to the next.

But there’s an even easier way. The team who is currently batting will have two batsmen out there and they will at all times be holding, surprise, surprise, a bat in their hands. No members of the fielding team will be holding any pieces of wood at all, until it’s their own turn to bat.

Verdict: Partly true

‘Spectators just sit around all day drinking beer and Pimm’s’

Cricket games last between three and a half and seven hours a day if you make your way to the ground to see the action first hand.

If it’s a long old day for the players and the same can be said of the fans. Only the most diehard of them will be closely following every single ball (or ‘delivery’ to give it its proper name), of which there are hundreds over the course of a day.

For the non-anorak-wearing fans, it’s therefore a day of dipping in and out of the action, discussing the game with your mates, having a laugh or if you’re in that way inclined, show up in fancy dress as Asterix, a purple dinosaur, the crocodile out of Peter Pan or whatever else you, err, fancy. This admittedly (thankfully?), is only a UK tradition when it comes to wearing fancy dress to matches on a Saturday during the summer.

And yes, sure the punters have some drinks while they’re following what’s going on in the field of play. Unlike in some other sports that will remain unnamed, cricket fans know how to behave themselves and don’t have to suffer the ignominy of being told that there’s a) no alcohol served at the ground at all but they can have an alcohol-free beer if they wish or b) they can have a regular beer but can only consume it within a designated space and at certain times.

No, none of that Nanny State nonsense at cricket matches, although some well-oiled voices after a few ‘jars’ can sometimes lead to singing. And not everyone is the Adele or Sting they think they are.

Beer is generally the preferred choice of beverage at cricket matches around the world and you’d probably struggle to get a Pimm’s at any ground in the world bar Lords’, in north London, the home of cricket.

Verdict: Partly true.

The language of cricket

“Rashid Khan comes into the bowl with a slip, a leg slip and a gully. Mid-off is up and mid-on is back on the boundary, waiting for the lofted shot over the infield. Kohli is on strike and will be aware the evening dew is making it hard for Khan to grip the ball. So Kohli will be looking to stay legside and will be eyeing up the gap between point and backward point, knowing he can’t afford to get too far behind on the required run rate. Khan decides to bowl the googly and…”

No, not a Monty Python sketch but rather a description of an imaginary passage of play in a cricket match. Regular readers of this column will remember that in the past we’ve looked at the unique terminology of padel, the slang of skateboarding, surfing and breaking at last year’s Olympics and explained how NAPS don’t involve closing your eyes when covering some racing terminology relating to the recent Cheltenham Festival.

No prizes for guessing that cricket has very much its own terminology and we’re afraid you’re going to have to spend a lot more time than what it’s taking you to read this article to even begin to get your head around all the most important terms. But here are a couple of terms and their origins to put you on the right path.

Cow Corner – This is an area of the field of play where if you were the batsman, would be roughly 4 o’clock on a watch from where you were stationed, at 12 o’clock. It’s difficult to manufacture a shot that ends up in cow corner so when cricket was (still is) played on village greens, cows were safer grazing out there than anywhere else because the ball was unlikely to come near them. Even on the most beautifully-manicured outfields in the world, with no cows in sight, the area is still called cow corner.

A badger – The second appearance of an animal’s name on our list refers to a particular type of cricketer. If you’re the extremely enthusiastic type, first-to-training-last-to-leave, unashamed about your love for the game and constantly ‘badgering’ the umpire for LBW decisions, don’t be surprised if ‘Badger’ is what you end up being called. Much like goalkeepers in football, wicketkeepers in cricket tend to be, well, crazy, so they’re the prime candidates to be given the badger moniker.

Death Bowler – Gone are the days when batsmen faced bowlers steaming in and bowling rock hard cricket balls at 95mph aimed at the batsmen’s unprotected skulls. Huge innovations in protective gear and general safety measures mean that while there will inevitably be some bruises and body blows, only the most freakish of accidents will lead to serious head injuries. And even then, concussion protocols mean a batter hit on the head would be checked up in hospital anyway, rather than carry on playing.

So that’s not the sort of death we’re talking about. Instead, the ‘death overs’ are the ones at the end of the innings where batsmen go for broke and take risks they wouldn’t dream of taking early on in the innings. It’s sort of the equivalent of the football team who at 1-0 down with two minutes left on the clock, send their defenders and even goalkeeper up the pitch to try to score.

A death bowler is therefore one with special skills and variations that are ideally suited to bowling at the toughest of times.

A declaration – No, sadly for the romantics, it’s not one of undying love for a member of the opposition’s team.

Rather, a declaration means the captain of the team currently batting thinks they already have a good enough score to be in a strong position and don’t want to waste any more time in the game by carrying on batting when they don’t need to.

Remember what we said about a five-day Test ending in a draw? An aggressive declaration by the skipper of the batting team is a sign of intent to ‘get on with the game’ and try to win it rather than just letting it peter out.

The Devil’s Number – In Australia, a score of 87 is regarded as unlucky in cricket. Many a world-class batsman has been on that score eyeing up a century (getting to 100 runs, which is extremely hard to do, and a landmark celebrated with a raised bat and a nod to your dressing room) only to realise they’d rather be on any other number.

So, fear, panic and self-doubt set in and before they know it, they’ve made just the sort of mistake they’ve avoided making for the last five hours, get out and have to walk back without a century to their name.

But why 87? One theory is that it’s 13 runs short of a century. And let’s face it, no one considers 13 a lucky number.

A dolly – No, not the cloned sheep or the inspirational country singer and philanthropist who still belts out tunes with the best of them at 79.

A dolly in cricket is a catch that’s particularly easy to take because the fielder doesn’t have to move, also helped by the fact it’s come at them at a ‘nice height’ and with little or no power, meaning they also have time on their side.

Also known as a ‘lolly’ or a ‘sitter’, its exact origins aren’t known but former England skipper Mike Gatting was famously guilty of dropping the mother of all dollies in the 1992-3 Series against India, forever being associated with the term.

A rabbit – And now to the third and final animal-related entry. Cricketers tend to either bowl or bat. Only the most gifted of them, the all-rounders, do both skills with successful results.
Luckily for batsmen, they don’t have to bowl. But bowlers have to bat, whether they like it or not.

The most incompetent/afraid/disinterested of them are happy to get out as batsmen as soon as possible and focus on their day job of bowling rather than this silly extra-curricular activity of avoiding broken noses and toes. Their own, by the way.

The latter are known as rabbits or bunnies (or sometimes even ferrets), presumably because their worried faces when they go out to bat resemble those of rabbits in the headlights.
You don’t want to hear an opposition player or commentator describe your dressing room as a ‘hutch’. A hutch houses multiple rabbits and if you’ve got too many of those, you’re not going to win many cricket matches.

Just how big is cricket?

If your only experience of cricket is it being featured in one of those family-orientated, feel-good English comedies of the 1990s set in picturesque little towns, it may look something like this.

The town Vicar and blacksmith join forces at the crease on the village green to bat together, rescuing their side from an early batting collapse, each gentle nudge through the covers for two or flick through the legside for a quick single met with polite applause from a crowd made up of the locals, restless to see their ‘lads’ get one over their rival village. Slices of lemon drizzle cake are carefully cut and distributed by the watchful spectators, while the resident tea-maker inquires if takers want one sugar, or two.

These sorts of games do still exist but at the highest, professional level, like the Indian Premier League (IPL) for example, it’s a very different story.

In the IPL, loud rock music, fireworks, cheerleaders, over-zealous stadium announcers and face-painted fans all contribute to the party atmosphere of a sport that’s not just big, it’s also big business. Here are some examples of cricket’s standing among other sports.

Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world in terms of fans

Who exactly is or isn’t a fan is up for debate but by whatever definition World Atlas make in their analysis, cricket is ranked the second most popular sport in the world with 2.5 billion fans worldwide, behind only soccer and its 3.5 billion fans.

Though there’s a good chunk of fans in the like of England, Australia, South Africa and the Caribbean, it’s the trio of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, with their huge populations that really contribute to that number. In all three countries, cricket is the national sport, and adoring fans follow their teams’ national matches religiously. Some would say, more than religion itself.

The Indian Premier League is the world’s second most valuable sports league

Cricket also secures a runner-up spot when it comes to the richest sports leagues in the world, thanks to the IPL.

In first spot is not the English Premier League, as many might expect, but rather the NFL and its flagship event, the Superbowl, with an estimated revenue of 13 billion USD a year.

The IPL is not too far behind with an estimated revenue of 9.5 billion USD for the year 2023.

Around since 2008, it’s a franchise league made up of 10 different teams, many of them owned by investment funds, media tycoons, huge Indian construction and telecommunications companies, and Bollywood superstars.

Part of the secret of its financial success are the eye-watering media rights deals that the league keeps securing, selling the rights to TV channels, streaming services and other media outlets, all desperate to broadcast the action to fans all over the world.

But many of the biggest Indian companies are also happy to get the big chequebook out to have perimeter advertising at the stadium, their names and logos on teams’ shirts or to sponsor some of the awards given out at the end of each match. Premier indeed.

The biggest stadium in the world is a cricket one

The name Ahmedabad may not necessarily mean much to you unless you’re a keen student of Indian geography. But the city in the state of Gujarat is currently home to the biggest sports stadium in the world with an estimated capacity of 132,000, beating the next biggest – the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in North Korea – by around 10,000 or so seats, depending on which reports you read.

Just so you have an idea of how big that is, the iconic Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro seats only 73,000, while the London Stadium that hosted the 2012 Olympics, holds just 68,000.

Named after the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it hosted its first international cricket match in 2021, and its facilities include: 76 corporate boxes, an Olympic size swimming pool, an indoor cricket academy, a huge food court and hospitality area and dormitories that can sleep 40 athletes. It is currently the home of the Gujarat Titans in the IPL.

But Indian cricket fans don’t necessarily have good memories of it after the final of the 2023 Cricket World Cup was played here. Red-hot favourites India, on home soil, were humbled by Australia, much to the shock of 120,000 plus fans at the ground.

Welcome…to the IPL.

One aspect of things we haven’t covered so far is the popularity of cricket betting in comparison to other sports.

It’s true that in Europe and the USA legal betting on cricket pales in comparison to the biggest football, American Football, horse racing, basketball tennis and even golf events.

But it’s also true that the grey betting markets (that’s putting it mildly, most of them are downright illegal) in the likes of India and Pakistan account for more bets placed and more turnover than most of the sports above all put together.

Even at UK and Australian betting sites cricket would make the Top 5 betting sports as a whole. So, there are plenty of opportunities up for grabs that revolve around this wonderful, and wonderfully popular, sport.
And once again, we find the IPL at the forefront of that.

Starting on Friday March 22 and ending on Sunday May 25, it’s made up of 74 matches contested across an initial Round-Robin Group Stage, which is then followed by the Play-Offs and the big final. So, a format not dissimilar to the revamped Champions League in football.

Here are some of the ways we at AIG can help you and your business flourish during the two months of daily IPL matches. We can:

• Write team guides, player analysis and colour pieces so your readers familiarise themselves with what the IPL is about.
• Provide match previews and betting tips that will help you convert readers into new accounts and bets placed, whether you’re an operator, or an affiliate site.
• Produce evergreen educational cricket content that will keep ranking well on search engines and bringing readers to your site for years to come.
• Write short promotional copy for Operators running marketing offers such as free bets and Odds Boosts, around the IPL.
• Advise you on SEO best practices and strategy so your IPL content is always competitive in an uber-competitive market.
• Localise cricket content so your readers are presented with the exact terms as they’re used in that specific country rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach where a cricket expression widely used in the UK doesn’t mean much to Indian fans.

Whatever your content needs are, related to sports, betting or otherwise, get in touch with our team at sales@all-in.global.

Who’s your IPL money on?

Time to round things off with a couple of IPL cricket tips before the action gets underway on Saturday.

Punjab Kings to make the final @ 5.5

Odds available at Bet365, Betfair and Paddy Power.

This is not one of the IPL’s most successful teams. This is not a side coming into the competition off the back of a strong season last time out; they finished ninth out of ten.

But I will tell you what his team is. One that has learnt from its past mistakes and one who did excellent business at the recent auction, off-loading expensive dead wood such as Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran, Jonny Bairstow and Shikhar Dhawan. All players who had outstayed their welcome and were either running out of gas, or stomach for the fight, which is even worse.

So, the arrivals of all-rounder (you’ll know from earlier in the article what one is) Glenn ‘The Big Show’ Maxwell and fellow highly competitive and extremely competent Aussies Josh Inglis and Marcus Stoinis add some much-needed energy, experience and X-factor. Then there’s South African giant (2.06m, if you’re wondering) fast bowler Marco Jansen, who should also provide just the sort of overseas gold dust they were crying out for and is another new addition.

Shreyas Iyer is fresh from skippering KKR to the title last year so knows his way around leading an IPL side, while Arshdeep Singh and Yuzvendra Chahal are among the cream of the Indian bowlers.

So, these are huge improvements to their squad, and we just need them to gel together now. Going all the way is a bit too much of an ask for a side who rarely makes finals, so we’ll take the shorter price that they just make the final at all.

Mumbai Indians to finish bottom @ 29.0

Odds available at Bet365 and 888Sport.

And now for a real punt. The Mumbai Indians are alongside CSK the most successful franchise with five titles.

But they certainly haven’t played like it recently, finishing rock bottom in both 2022 and 2024.

Yet here we are again with Mumbai being given joint-favourite status alongside CSK when the far more interesting bet is just how badly they can fail, not succeed. The short odds on them winning explain the big odds on them fishing last.

Star man Sky Yadav has been badly out of form while their best bowler by a country mile, Jasprit Bumrah, will miss at least a few matches through injury and may not be fully fit even if he does recover. That’s a big hole to fill.

Something that has happened twice in three years shouldn’t be a 29.0 chance whichever way you look at it and it’s a cracking bet.