Cheers! How cricket game bowled over a nation

Here's how it works
So what’s so complicated?  Give me a second to explain how it works.

There are two wickets (three sticks called stumps topped by two small pieces of wood called bails) guarded by the two guys with the bats I told you about. The bowler — or pitcher — runs up and throws the ball at one of them. (He has to keep his arm strangely straight at the elbow or else it’s a foul.) 

The batter tries to hit the ball and if he connects, he can try to run to the other wicket and the other batsman runs toward him, so they cross over and change places — if they run a single or 3, but not if they run two. (Unlike baseball, they can choose whether or not to run.)

With me so far? 

The batters can be bowled out (one or both of those bails falls), run out, caught out or called out LBW (leg before wicket - honest). 

The bowler gets six balls at a time and if no one scores he’s bowled a maiden over. (You can’t make this up.) He may be knocked for six runs, or four if the ball bounces. There to help him, among others, is a wicket-keeper, 1^st slip, 2nd slip, midfield and silly-mid-on.

Come on, admit it. You gave up several lines ago didn’t you?

Mike Finn-kelcey / AP Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair shakes the hand of England cricketer Kevin Pietersen, during a reception at 10 Downing Street, on Tuesday.

But for some curious reason we Brits — well really, it’s more we English, as most of the Welsh, Scots and Irish are as bemused as you Americans — rather enjoy this ritual.

'Cricket at its best'
And, certainly, the country’s been transfixed by the series these past several weeks.

On the final day of the game, the London Stock Exhange reported a 20 percent drop in trading. The brokers, it seems, were busy watching their TV screens, rather than their computer ones.

Some 25,000 fans were glued to the game at the stadium. Others perched precariously on the ridge of nearby rooftops, watching over the wall. Some eight million sat in front of their TV sets.  

Among them, Her Majesty the Queen, who sent best wishes to both the victorious team and to the losers.  She is, after all, queen of both.

“Cricket at its best,” she messaged them diplomatically.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was more effusive: “With so many people following this extraordinary series I am not sure our economy could stand many more days like today or our nerves any more excitement. But you have given cricket a huge boost and lit up the whole summer.”

So much so he invited the boys round to his place in Downing Street as a grand finale to the victory parade.

You can expect the party to go on for a while longer yet.

The prize?
So, I hear you ask, what exactly do you win when you get the Ashes? A jewel-encrusted bowl the size of a cartwheel?  A gold-and-silver trophy?

Not quite.

It’s something more like an egg-cup sized urn filled with, well, ashes, believed to be from the cremated wooden bails that sat atop the stumps of an earlier Australia-England wicket 120 years or so ago.

Not much of a prize? Still puzzled? As I was saying, that’s cricket for you.

MORE FROM EUROPE

Europe Section Front

Obama, Medvedev to talk weapons treaty Storm lashes Britain with strong winds Police: Body parts sold to kebab stand Blasts at Russian ammo depot kill 2 Russian policemen turn to YouTube Desert bones linked to German tourists New Italian museum has eye toward art’s future Exhibit unmasks horror of human trafficking Eastwood made Legion of Honor commander Europe Section Front   Add Europe headlines to your news reader: