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I usually get flagged for my shamanic-style Morris dancing, where I wear only body paint, snort lots of yopo, and keep convulsing harder until I can see and interact with the spirits of my ancestors.

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I usually get flagged for my shamanic-style Morris dancing, where I wear only body paint, snort lots of yopo, and keep convulsing harder until I can see and interact with the spirits of my ancestors.

See above, @popobawa4u.

Honestly? At a very basic level, you point the seam the way you want the ball to go after it bounces and just run it and chuck it down there. If you’re lazy like me and want to jog in, just give the ball a flick left or right when you chuck it down, to get it spinning.

at the other end of the spectrum…

You are not an ass, and honestly quite constructive.

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This seems about as exciting a golf.

Okay, lemme see if I can help here…

Bowlers (including all-rounders and occasionals) are broadly grouped into two main types, quicks and spinners. A fast-bowler, pace or quick relies on speed unless they’re bowling a slower ball, while a spin uses rotation, unless they’re switching the pace up.
Quicks are further broken into seam and swing. Typical types of quick ball would be bouncers (of which they are allowed 2 per over and run the risk of hooking or being called as wides or worse, byes), these are safer than beamers but still are classed as intimidatory tactics, most famously in the Bodyline series,
in- and out-swingers, the highly sought-after reverse swing and yorkers.

Spinners are either finger or wrist spin and have in their arsenal a devastating array of rotational deliveries, including both leg and off-spin, as well as the rarer balls as such as the doosra or teesra, googlies and flippers. The terminology changes depending on (finger or wrist-spin), so a finger-spinner would bowl a doosra, while a wristie would deliver the same ball as a wrong’un.

Then there’s the line-and-length approach, which is most common in club and beach games, usually only found in Test when the innings are safe and an over is given to a long-serving or popular player as a way of thanking them. The change of pace and lack of finesse can often rattle a batsman enough to find an unexpected wicket, so it’s not unusual to see this.

So you see it’s not really as complicated as people make out.

#cricketsplaining :wink:

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Cricket isn’t meant to be exciting!

But Fire in Babylon is an interesting film…

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If we had to pay to comment here, I have a feeling this thread (or so many others) wouldn’t have been as interesting as it’s become.

But that’s just my two cents.

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(Two cents deposited into my PayPal account).

Nothing else to add other than I enjoy the riparte, even when I am at the wrong end.

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Buy where do the Ashes and the eddies and Chesterfields come into? And the bone-in-beard? And the everyone else’s problem?

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Exciting cricket just interrupts things. Rain stops play at Trent Bridge, Aggers and Blowers on TMS while I’m gently dozing in the garden, beer in hand.
I keep trying to explain the zen-like joy of this to Australians but they persist in playing to actually win.

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Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what bowling has to do with all of this.

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Hopefully not today, though.

Besides, where’s the fun in winning all the time? English cricket being good for a few years has been all the better for them being utterly dire since the mid 80s.

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I love the differences in the UK and US between bowling and bowling, football and football, and color and colour.

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LIKE WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN! What the fuck is a Test. And what’s a beamer? Also spinner. And I’m not sure what the fuck a doosra is, either. And quicks? Like as in a quickie? Do you mean hooking, like what a hooker does?

Byes?? Okay, bye bye bye.

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It means the game was invented by people with waaaay too much time* on their hands who should have been doing something more constructive**. :laughing:

Like playing Mornington Crescent*** or watching opera, understanding is almost irrelevant to actual enjoyment.

signals for four byes

*Like me. **Also like me. ***A game played on BBC Radio that was popular online in the earlier days of the internet.
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All you need to know about Cricket. Plus, there’s a great story to go along with it.