Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - "Ashes Fever" Grips Australia in Late November! Americans Immune!

My spouse and 2 daughters will be in Australia during the upcoming cricket Ashes 1st and 2nd Test series and I'm sure that all that they will hear on TV, read in the newspapers and hear Aussies talking about will be skewed towards how Shane Warne, et al, will beat the bejesus out of England! Since I have been trying for years to make heads or tails out of cricket, but to little avail, I find that I'm a poor resource for giving them any knowlege about the sport in order that they won't feel so "American" when they are in Australia in November and December! I referred them to the following link as a tutorial about cricket for Americans:

http://usa.cricinfo.com/db/ABOUT_CRICKET/EXPLANATION/CRICKET_EXPLAINED_FOR_NOVICES.html

This web site may interest others who know cricket only as a chirping insect... That goes even for most Canadians who share our ignorance of cricket, the game!

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I will be giving my SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) membership a good work out for the Sydney test, all 5 days of it :D

Unfortunately I doubt that tutorial will give your daughters or wife the insight into the game that they need to fully appreciate it, and instead they will, as most women do and some men, complain that at the end of the day all they have seen is that the grass has grown.

I will be giving my SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) membership a good work out for the Sydney test, all 5 days of it :D

Unfortunately I doubt that tutorial will give your daughters or wife the insight into the game that they need to fully appreciate it, and instead they will, as most women do and some men, complain that at the end of the day all they have seen is that the grass has grown.

Exactly. The benefit of all Australian cricket grounds is that they seem mysteriously close to shopping precincts so that the men can watch the cricket and the women can go shopping :)

Cricket is actually ridiculously simple to follow - two batsmen go out, and they are then in. Both batsman stay in until one of them is out, in which case he goes in, and another batsman goes out and then becomes in. This goes on until all batsmen are out (10 of the 11 members of the team being out counts as all out) at which time the team that was in goes in and the other team then goes in and repeats the procedure.

There, that was simple, wasn't it?

Dave