by John Gray

Created on: July 01, 2009   Last Updated: July 24, 2009

The real satisfaction of thwacking a cricket ball for four, and watching it glide along the freshly cut grass, is one of the greatest pleasures in cricket. Seeing it thump against the boards and rise up into the air as the sun beats down upon merry England, is a joyful sight to behold indeed.

Every sunny Sunday, in every village green in England, the glorious game continues to thrive as it has done for centuries, upholding the long kept traditions of the past.

For those who have been brought up on a diet of weekend cricket all those stock phrases of the game just seem perfectly normal. However for those new to cricket, the terms and expressions of the game can appear very strange indeed, if not downright silly.

Even a cursory examination of two hundred years of cricket jargon however will take forever, almost as long as a five day test match. So what follows is a basic guide to some of the major terms of cricket, and some strange ones thrown-in for good measure.

First however, it seems a good idea to give a basic rundown of the rules, for anyone who is completely baffled by this seemingly illusive game.

* The rules of cricket - simplified!

Cricket always consists of eleven players per side, no matter what type of game is being played. After a toss of the coin one side gets to choose who is going to bat first, the other team will field. The batting side will go out man by man and score as many "runs" as they can. A run consists of a complete run from one side of the stumps to the other, or four runs for hitting a boundary and six for the ball flying over the boundary without it hitting the ground first.

The fielding side can get those in play out in a number of different ways:

* Bowl them out

* Catch them out

* Run them out

* LBW (Leg Before Wicket)

Bowl them out means just that, if a bowler hits the stumps and knocks the bails flying they're out. A catch out is only allowed if the ball has not hit the ground and is cleanly caught by the fielding player. A run out occurs when a batting player's stumps are knocked away if they are caught out of their zone. A LBW is entirely down to the umpire's decision that a leg has impeded a ball that would have otherwise been bowled out.

Play continues until all the players are out, (in fact 10 players will be out and one left without a partner) and it is then the turn of the fielding team's to beat the score of the team put into bat first.

* Types of games

There are a number of different games, the standard

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