"they only got 2 wickets out of this over" - it's excellent for the fielding team, awful for the batting team.

As an  Aussie - I am now glad you understand most of the format of cricket  - Our season of Cricket will begin with a week as the MCG is underway transforming the gound to cricket pitch as the AFL is over for another year until March next year,

This is exactly how I explain it to my USA friends. They instantly have a basic understanding of the game then I add the 4 and 6 and LBW. And it all comes together for them

Only the batter currently facing the bowler's delivery can score. When they swap positions during running, the batter standing next to the bowler is running to assist, but not to score individually.

The reason it is called a "dot ball", is because before computers and phones, you would write everything down with a pen on a paper scorecard. So for every 0 run delivery, it was easier to quickly draw a dot than to continually write the number 0. So treat "• = 0". Or think of a dot as a squashed 0.

In the T20 format, there are only 120 deliveries per team available to make a score. So, teams will aim for an average of 9-10 runs an over (every 6 deliveries). That translates to around 1.5 runs per delivery, or 180 runs for the 120 deliveries. A total score of 180 is considered average. 200 or higher would be a good competitive target needed to win.

Because there are so few deliveries to score runs in T20 (for this example), any dot ball basically takes an average of 1.5 runs off the final total. The bowling team wants to keep the scoring as low as possible, while the batting team wants to keep the score continually ticking along.

In ODI (one day international/50 over) matches, there are 300 deliveries in total per team. So teams can tolerate a few more dot balls, but it should not be the norm. In (5 day) test matches, with no over limit, time constraints mostly disappear. Staying in batting and protecting your wicket then becomes more important than trying to continually score. So in test matches, a dot ball is completely normal.

Partnerships are basically any 2 batters who are batting together. It could be your 2 starting batters. It could be your last 2 batters, a starting plus a lower order batter, or anything in between. Generally, the best batters start near the top of your batting order (first 5). Average batters in the middle. And the specialist bowlers (who are not that great at batting) will bat near the end of the batting order - which is known as the tail.

When facing your first delivery as a batter, you don't normally have your eye and reaction speed fully dialled in. So a new batter coming in will take a bit of time to get their concentration and reaction speed to a comfortable level, which is when they are at the highest risk of getting out straight away. So you'll find of the 2 batters, one batter will take the lead role and absorb most of the focus and pressure. This is generally the higher rated batter, or the batter who has been in the longest. If a new batter is switched on, they may take the lead. Or if a batter has been out there for hours (in a longer game), their concentration and focus can fatigue, so they might take a backseat for a little bit to give themselves some rest. Sometimes both will share the load equally. All depends on what's happening at the time.

What was not really explained that well is the bracketed number you will see everywhere. You can use this to judge how well a batter is scoring (and estimate how long they have been batting). So telling you a batter has scored 50 could be good or bad depending on the context. For example, "50 (20)" means they scored 50 runs and only faced 20 balls, meaning they are on fire (scoring 2.5 runs per delivery). However, "50 (200)" would be considered sluggish. They have faced 200 deliveries and only scored 50 runs. That means 0.25 runs per ball, or on average 3 dot balls for every 1 run scored.

For bowlers, scorecards use overs (sets of 6 balls). So a "(5)" next to a bowler's name means they have bowled 5 overs (30 deliveries). Remember that when you see overs shown with a dot, it is not a decimal point, it is a separator. It only goes up to ".5" and then ticks up to the next whole number. So you will see: 15, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 16, etc. The team's total overs also uses the same method.

The bowlers also have their bowling figures, which show how many wickets they took and how many runs were scored against them. So a bowler with 5-20, "five (wickets) for twenty (runs)", has had a great game. This is because they only had 20 runs scored against them but got 5 batters (half the team) out. A bowler with 0-89 did not do great. They took no wickets and had 89 runs scored against them. However, a bowler who has bowled 10 overs and has a stat of 0-13 is excellent, because even though they didn't get a wicket, they were still very economical and basically shut down the batters from scoring.

Wow. Im an aussie, and even i found that relatable. Best beginner primer (for an american or other baseball fan) ive seen yet.

I really like that you took the time to understand cricket G. It must have been baffling at first.

Remember, outs are rare. Once you are out batting, you are out for the game. And you don't have to run (dot ball).

Here’s some Aussie slang for you. When we leave an event or a situation that’s not going well or it’s just getting late, we say
‘time to pull up stumps’
The stumps and bails are taken off the field after each game and are stored in a storage cupboard. You pull up the stumps after the game
Pull up stumps
It’s my favourite slang
Ok it’s getting late! Time to pull up stumps!!

James Faulkener : https://youtu.be/QmSQGHzCYfA

in that batting scorecard look at Johnson's contribution of 25 from 13 balls. I would think that before he came in they were falling behind the required run rate, so that was a very valuable and fast contribution to his team's effort.

Thanks Greggo. Only the 'striker', the batter who hits the ball, gets accredited with the runs. The batter at the non strikers end doesn't accrue runs unless they're on strike. Theoretically, the striker could hit 50×2 run shots and make 100 runs, while the non strikers has made 0 because they haven't 'faced'a ball. It's quite a technical game with lots of 'cricket' lingo. You'll pick it up. Good commentators covering a match are worth their salt. 🇦🇺😀👍

Damn, that was a really well explained video. Gonna start sharing that to my American mates when they ask me cos I really struggle to explain it. Using baseball terms seems like a great way to help the understanding

I don't remember being told the rules. As an Aussie I just knew. It was fun watching you learn the intricacies of cricket 🏏

This is a better video for baseball fans https://youtu.be/EWpbtLIxYBk?si=4sxxZIJYkIwRix1G

The introduction to cricket - and this is the SINGLE most important point, that all the rest of the details hinge upon.

1 - The bowler is trying to hit the wickets
2 - The batsman is trying to stop the ball with his bat

After that, the other bowling and batting strategies come into play -  manipulate the batter into misunderstanding his next bowl - or set up the batter to miscalculate, and hit the ball to a fielder
- Alternate to that, the bowler is trying minimise the chances of a batter gaining runs

After the ball has been hit - THEN the other means to stop numbers of runs - catching the ball on the full - running the batsman out (ie. knocking the bails off the wickets before the batsman reaches the 'safe zone')

Both players run but only the player at bat scores the run. The other player is in support. Each time both players run from one end to the other, that's one run.
The player at bat scores the run but either player can be put "out".

So, this was focusing on Twenty20 cricket, which is the faster, more exciting version of the game, usually played in leagues. The name comes from the fact that each team only faces 20 overs (120 pitches). There are longer versions of the game called One-Day Internationals and Test Matches. One Day Internationals take place between nations and each team faces 50 overs (300 deliveries) and Test Matches don't have a limit for the number of pitches a team faces. Each format has slightly different rules, but the main thing to remember in all of them is that cricket is the opposite of baseball in terms of scoring. In cricket, scoring runs is very, very easy, getting a batter out is very, very difficult. If you're watching the match and the teams are wearing all white, that's typically a Test Match between two nations. The shorter formats (T20 and ODI's) the players wear coloured uniforms.

The original commenter missed that the fielding team have to throw the ball at the wickets directly dislodging the bails that sit on top of the stumps (wickets) or to a team mate whom with the ball in hand dislodges the bails, to 'run-out' the batsman.
It is NOT two scores for each batter when they run between the wickets, it's only a run for the batter, the non striker gets nothing to his individual tally, for the run to count, they have to complete the run with the batter by reaching the bat or foot in contact with the ground to the batting crease (the second line in front of the wickets). if either the batter or the non striker fail to touch bat or part of their body on or beyond the line, the run is not counted, this doesn't mean if they run for a second or subsequent runs that they are dismissed, so long as they make the line by both players for the same run.
So, when they run for a single, only the batters individual score goes up.
in T20, which is a shortened version of cricket, the bowlers are limited to 4 overs, or 24 deliveries - or pitches if you like. There are also 60 over matches which take up a full day, and there are 1st class Games between counties which last 4 days (used to be 5) and test matches between countries are 5 days maximum. with each team having 2 innings each, the object is to get the other team out - thus 2 innings x 10 wickets, and score more than the opposition. In the longer version of the game, draws are very common place.

That was a really good explanatory video with a real example.

A couple of deviations to be aware of though

For some reason, Australia puts the wickets first (so 1-9 would be 1 out for 9 runs; the rest of the world would show it as 9-1 I.e 9 runs for 1 out)

This was a T20 - I.e. each team gets 20 overs (and has 10 outs) to score the most runs. This is generally the most action packed as 120 balls isn't a lot, so you see a lot of big hits and wickets. A good score here is about 9 runs an over - 180.

The next type is one day cricket, which is the same as T20, except instead of 20 overs, there are 50. This has a lot more strategy, because you want to keep your outs and slowly score runs (playing the full 50 overs at 6 runs an over is better than 20 overs at 9 per over) - most scores range from 260-300.

And finally is first class / test cricket. There is no over limit, and each team gets 2 innings. So, to win you need to get the other team all out (10 outs X 2 innings) AND score more runs than them while not getting out before getting those runs. This is an endurance event. First class is 4 days of 90 overs, and test matches (international) are 5 days of 90 overs. It's often called boring because it's a true battle of stamina and concentration - usually somewhere between 2 and 3 runs per over is common. It's also not uncommon for neither team to get all 20 outs (or get the outs but not get the runs) which results in a draw.

I would think that doing a Livestream of watching a T20 would be a great way to learn and get help from commenters to understand a bit more. The big bash (Australia's T20 league) starts in Mid December - pick a team and watch it !

At the end of each over, another bowler, nominated by the captain,  runs in and pitches from the opposite end for that next over, and so on. So, say,  if one batsman doesn't score any runs in an over, then the batsman at the other end will face the first delivery of the next over at least.
This change in ends after each over is not very evident on telly coverage ever since, but  several decades ago, the main camera only films from one end of the ground only end, in other words the main  camera footage changes ends after every over as well as the bowler !
So in the past, TV coverage of every other over had the wicket keeper standing  between the main camera and the wickets, thus partially blocking the view of the wickets that the bowler is attacking during that over.