Ooops, a bit of a delayed reply by me, but hey...
pds said:
Cricket is the wierdest sport - especially if you only hear the scores or reports on BBC World. The amount of jargon would make a geek blush - tourists, lbw, caught an edge, googlie, pace bowler etc etc.
Thinking about it, I know what you mean, but I guess I take a lot of it for granted now. On the other hand, that is always the way with sports. Talk to a European about a "bunt" or a "short stop" or "stealing a base" and see what reaction you get! Well, perhaps don't use the word "bunt" in front of them...
With the terms you mentioned... "Tourists" just means the away side, really. The visitors. I guess they call them tourists because it is always a case of travelling between countries. "lbw" means "leg before wicket," and basically means the batsman used his leg to stop the ball hitting the stumps rather than using his bat; so he should have been out, in effect, and that is why "lbw" does indeed get you out. "Caught an edge" means the ball hit the edge of the bat rather than being hit cleanly, and this usually is a bit heart-stopping for the batsman, as he might easily be caught out; the bats have flat faces, and so there are edges to the bat. A "googly" is a specific type of bowl which is quite tricky for batsmen to hit. See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/sa/cricket/skills/newsid_3207000/3207939.stm
You'll notice that, in cricket, the ball tends to be bowled at the ground so that the bounce (sometimes with deliberate spin) makes the direction of the ball harder to predict. Bowling the ball without making it bounce first is called a "full toss" and is generally avoided, as they can be easier to hit.
(Also,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/sa/cricket/default.stm seems quite good in general)
A "pace bowler" is basically a bowler who bowls the ball and goes for speed, not spin. Pace bowlers bowl the ball more-or-less straight and just vary the speed (usually around 80-90 MPH) and height (sometimes bouncing them at head height to intimidate the batsmen). A "spin bowler," meanwhile, just takes a few steps up, rather than a long run, and bowls the ball slowly, but with huge amounts of spin in any direction so the ball does unpredictable things!
pds said:
The announcers are always so up-beat about the score - "England is well positioned" - on one broadcast and later in the day "England was clobbered at the crease and has lost."
LOL
That's the one! England are very good at seemingly doing well and then somehow throwing it all away!
pds said:
But I used to visit Guyana from time to time when I lived in neighboring Suriname. Kids play it on _every_ street corner using balls, rocks, paperwads or goat stomaches. It is something to see. I was there once during a major Test series with Australia. The entire country just shut down.
Wow, I didn't know they were into it so much!