Overview
Cricket’s lone appearance at the Summer Olympics came in 1900, the second ever modern iteration of the Games. 128 years later, the sport will officially return to the world stage.
Contested on an oval, grass-covered field, cricket features two teams of 11 players each switching off “batting” and “bowling” (throwing), ultimately — like baseball — attempting to score more runs than their opponent.
Only the batting team can put runs on the board, which they do by hitting a ball (that was bowled) and successfully running between the wickets (wooden stumps). The bowling squad, meanwhile, tries to get batters out (aka dismissed) through a number of different methods, which includes inducing swings and misses and catching the ball on the fly.
Australia is considered a dominant cricket nation, while England and New Zealand are also countries to watch out for in L.A.