Batsmen.

There are two batsmen in a standard set, one striking and one standing!

These are the two batsmen in my set, if the ball hits the batsman and then careers of, the score determinator can be used to determine the run or runs scored, similarly if the ball was then to hit the wicket, that would count as out ,played onto wicket, and likewise if the ball was to end up in the cup of a fielder, it would count as being caught.

Fair play!!

         All the sets contain two umpires, to give the game a little authenticity!

            The photo shows the two umpires that I have in my club edition set, they might not actually do anything , but at least they look the part. It's quirky things like this that appeals to my strange sense of humour, may the madness be with you!!!!

Bowling.

When I first was aware of subbuteo cricket I did not bother with it, being of the opinion that the bowling would consist of some sort of ramp contraption resulting in the ball rolling somewhat lamely towards the wicket!

                However I was pleasantly suprised to find this not to be the case. The picture shows the bowling figure, use of which I have shown in a previous posting. This method enables the ball to be pitched short, long, or to either side providing quite a challenge for the batsman! With a bit of practice, one can send the stumps flying in spectacular fashion, or deflections to the slips or wicket keeper, it is actually quite clever, and once one has got the hang of it can be great fun!!

Cricket musings.

Rugby has been getting a good airing of late, so I thought it was maybe time for some more matters cricket.

            Here is a picture of one of the wicket bases complete with stumps in place and bails. Quite often when tracking down the old sets for either collecting or amusement, the most likely item to be missing is the bails, or should that be are the bails!! I was fortunate to aquire a complete set with both sets of bails present.
            The raised areas are for deflecting the ball either to the slips, or the wicket keeper, if the ball ends up in the cup of either figure, that counts as being caught behind.It is quite common for this to happen once the bowling technique is acquired.

Scrum.

Previously I have stated that the scrum machine was random as regards to which side the ball emerges, however I have been experimenting lately, and if the ball is tilted slightly towards the team taking the scrum, 3 out of 4 times the ball comes out that side of the scrummer. Therefore in some situations it would be better to take the scrum than to play advantage.

Scoreboard.

As with the other games in the subbuteo series, rugby has a scoreboard to chart game progress.

 It would really require another person solely manning the scoreboard in an actual game, but it is good for boosting one's moral with scores that you would like to see!!!

Heavy and light.

There are basically two types of playing figures, the earlier teams were what is classed as heavyweight, whilst the later teams were of the lightweight variety.

The yellow figure is of the heavyweight variety, whilst the red figure is of the lightweight type. As can be seen the bases vary slightly and so do the figures, as can be seen the yellow figure is chunkier. Also control when attempting swerve shots seems to be more reliable with the heavier figure.