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Dear Readers:

Compliments,

Cricket can be confusing if you’re a newcomer, or simply if there isn’t a tradition in your country. But, once you understand the basics, its easy to build up your knowledge. The same principles and terms apply to every form of the game, so once you’ve developed a good foundation, then sky’s the limit.

To the uninitiated, cricketing terms can be like a foreign language. The difference between terms like short leg and long on, or yorker and googly might not be obvious at first, but there are lots of online or printed resources to help. One difficulty with most of these is that they assume a certain level of cricket knowledge. However Wikipedia is a good starting point, as it gives the basics as well as providing links to more detailed explanations. Cricinfo.com also supplies a useful list for beginners.

With some understanding of the rules and terms, you’ve made a solid start on learning how to play cricket. Now, there are different paths depending on your aspirations as a player or supporter, or both.

Like any other sport, good players have to get the basic skills right from the beginning, and then build on them. This is true for young or old, male or female. And, if there’s a young cricketer in your family, you’ll have a great time supporting them too.

I encourage you to visit my website cricketmansion.webs.com to learn more about this great sport.

Good Luck!

Cricket Player.           

All about CRICKET

Welcome to Cricket Mansion – This blog site is “All about CRICKET” where you find information about the rules of the game, how to play the game, cricket gears you need and tips to improve your cricketing skills.

Essential things you need to play cricket:

Cricket Bat , Cricket Ball , Cricket Stumps , Cricket Gloves for Batting and Keeping  and Players.

Warm up is real important even before you play a friendly time pass game. Do some stretching exercise, rotate your arms, little skipping or jogging, to get yourself ready for the action.  

Getting ready for a game:

§  Cricket can be played almost anywhere… in your backyard, ground, park, beach or even streets.

§  Mark your pitch and the crease for batting and bowling.

§  Place your stumps and mark the boundaries.

§   Based on the size of the group you have, you can split as two teams.

§  Toss a coin and decide which team bats or fields first. Also decide how many overs to play

Playing the game:

§  The fielders and wicket keeper takes their positions.

§  The game starts with a striker and a non-striker out on the field for the batting team. The striker is ready to be bowled to by standing in a batting position in front of the wicket ready to hit the ball.

§  The bowler bowls the ball to the striker, with usually one bounce before it reaches the striker.

§  The striker hits the ball and both the batsmen run to try to reach the opposite popping crease. When both successfully touch, by body or bat, the ground behind the opposite crease, a run is scored.

§  A six run is scored by hitting the ball over the boundary with out touching the ground. If the ball reaches the boundary and touches the ground in doing so, the batting team is granted four runs.

§  The batsman can get out in a number of ways. Most common ways are bowled, caught, run out, stumped and hit wicket. To learn more about the ways a batsman can get out click here.

§  To learn more about cricket rules, click here.

Common Batting Mistakes

Earlier I had provided 6 tips for aggressive batting. As a follow up to this post I am providing some common mistakes that batsman make.

1. Incorrect Grip: When holding the bat, there should be a natural V formation in between the hands.
2. Bottom hand dominance: Some players have their Bottom hand go far too around the grip. This gives too much bottom hand dominance. This causes the bat to go too far towards the point or gully in the backlift, resulting in the batsman playing across the line. Playing across the line of the ball means playing at the ball with the downswing of the bat coming through at an angle of the ball. The face of the bat is closed to the line of the ball, giving less surface area of the bat to hit the ball. This increases the chances of the ball being edged behind to the keeper or slips.
3. Do not have the hand too far apart: Control in the grip and your shots, comes from the top hand. When the top hand is in control of the bat, it allows the backlift to go back at the correct angle, allowing the full face of the bat to hit the ball.
4. Don’t stand still for too long: Standing too still before the ball is bowled will put pressure on you. Relax, tap the bat, and move back and forth to be ready to hit the ball.
5. Forward press: do not go across the stumps on the offside before the ball the bowled. The right way is to back up a step or two towards the wicket and go forward with the bat coming down having the head straight looking at the delivery to play the ball.

Prevent Injuries

Although cricket is not a contact sport, injuries can and do occur, often due to overuse. Cricket is often played in the heat, so players and spectators need to be protected from dehydration, heat stress and sun damage.

Common injuries
The most common types of injuries suffered through cricket are strains, sprains, fractures, bruising and open wounds. Many of these injuries affect the upper body, particularly the hands and fingers.

Injuries to the face, finger and hand from a cricket ball are the most common types of hospital-treated injuries, followed by falls.

Bowlers are inclined to suffer overuse injuries, such as back and shoulder injuries.

Preventing injury
To prevent injury, you should:

• Be prepared
• Wear the right gear
• Keep the playing environment safe
• Know yourself and the sport.

Be prepared
Remember to:

• Attend training so your body is ready.
• Warm up and stretch before playing.
• Cool down and stretch after playing.

Wear the right gear
Make sure you:

• Wear a mouthguard, preferably custom-fitted, at all times.
• Wear shoes designed for cricket.
• Wear protective pads.
• If you have a history of injury, speak to your doctor or physiotherapist about appropriate bracing or protective gear.

Keep the playing environment safe
A safe ground is important, so remember to:

• Remove hazards, such as stones and water, from the playing surface.
• Make sure the pitch is smooth and clean.

Know yourself and the sport
Suggestions include:

•  Know and use the right techniques for bowling, batting and catching.

• Get your coach to teach you the proper sliding stop technique.
• If you are a pace bowler, you should restrict the number of overs bowled during play, taking into account your physical maturity and fitness.
• Know how to use the equipment properly and safely.
• Follow the rules and play fairly.

Other safety tips
Suggestions include:

• Wear a hat and use sunscreen.
• Drink water before, during and after play.
• Don’t play in extreme heat or wet conditions. Where possible, games should be rescheduled.
• Make sure everyone, including coaches, players and parents are aware of the symptoms of heat-related illness.
• Check that qualified first aid personnel, first aid kits, icepacks and a stretcher are available at all times.
• Check that telephone access, to contact emergency services, is available.

Respond promptly to injuries
If you or someone else is injured:

• Remove injured or bleeding players from the ground immediately.

• Seek prompt attention from qualified first aid personnel.
• Make sure you are fully rehabilitated before returning to play.
• Wear a brace for at least three months after serious joint injuries.

Where to get help

• Your doctor
• Sports physician
• Physiotherapist

What is Cricket Mansion?

Cricket Mansion is dedicated to helping you find the best information about the sports of Cricket, how to play the game and have a great time. This is a real site. By real, I mean genuine and sincere.


There are so many cricketing websites and blogs, but not many sites explain the basics of how to play the game. Cricket Mansion’s blogs and website cricketmansion.webs.com provides the information on how to play cricket, how to improve, how to understand the game and what you need to get started. The language is plain and simple, easy for even cricket novices or even people who have no cricket knowledge to follow. The design of the site is very simple and clean which helps to keep your interest in the blog.  There is no unnecessary clutter, and this further keeps your interest in the blog at its max.

In the meantime though Cricket Mansion doesn’t provide latest news and happenings in the cricket world, but blogs and articles are posted regularly providing tips and tricks for playing and improving you skills.

Cricket Mansion’s blog is an example of how a cricket player can use blogging technology to let the world know of his talents.  Cricket Mansion uses the free blogging software from blogspot.com, so there's no need to register the domain name or pay for hosting.

If you like us to provide information on any specific area, please let us know. We will try our best to get information from the best sources possible….

Review of "And God Created Cricket"

In this blog, we are reviewing the book “And God Created Cricket” by Simon Hughes

Simon Hughes guides the readers through all the great tales of the Cricket game, from its earliest origins in the sixteenth century, through the formation of the MCC and the opening of Lord's cricket ground in 1787, to the spread of county cricket in the next century, when the Wisden Cricketers' "Almanack" was first published and the Ashes series was born to the present day.

 Throughout its 500-year history, cricket has been a mirror for society as a whole, reflecting the changes that have brought the people from the quintessential village green to Freddie Flintoff's pedalo, from W G Grace to Monty Panesar, via a fair number of eccentrics, heroes and downright villains. The outline of his story is how the English had invented the game and how other countries have learned the game swiftly and have become better at this game, even to the level of beating England.  It is the story of the mad characters who inhabit the game, the extraordinary lengths people will go to watch and play it, the tale of a national obsession. It debunks the myth of cricket sportsmanship, showing the origins of sledging and match-fixing in centuries of subterfuge, corruption and violence.

The culture and history of the game are amusingly brought out in an enormously jolly book. Overall the book provides plenty of fun, good stories, research from the analyst and history of cricket for the readers.

The Cricket Fun Roundup

§  5 Key Element of Cricket.

“Keeping it simple. Talking only about the main aspects of the game.”

§  6 Tips to become an Aggressive Batsman

“Oh come on! Who doesn’t like Aggressive Batsmen ?? They make cricket fun and provide the fans the entertainment needed for the time and money spent.”

§  Pace or Spin, Which is better?

“Can you pitch it hard and quick – You may belong in the Brett Lee, Shohib Akthar, Zakeer Khan’s team.  Do you put a spin on everything you throw: Car keys, crushed paper.  You may belong in Shane Warne, Anil Kumble, Muttiah Muralitharan’s team.”

§  Recommended products to get started with cricket

“Have a group of friends? What do you need to have a great time in your backyard?”

§  Take a look at another great cricket blog

“Cricinfo provides the most comprehensive live cricket available as well as unparalleled statistics, quality editorial comment and analysis.”

§  Cricket for Dummies

“Everything you need to know about the sport of Cricket.”

§  The A-Z of Cricket

“Information on cricket’s history and complexities in an entertaining and informative way.”

§  Cricket Explained

“From the game’s fundamentals- basic rules, terminology, equipment - to the finer points of strategy individual playing styles, and cricket lore.”