Modified cricket game

Abstract

A modified cricket game is played by a group of players on a conventional cricket field. Each player (1) attempts to hit an equal number of balls bowled by other players and (2) bowls an equal number of balls. A batsman earns points for runs scored and loses points for outs made. A bowler earns points for recording outs and loses points for runs allowed. Players in the field earn points by catching a fly ball and getting or assisting a run out and lose points for dropping a fly ball, miss fielding and allowing a boundary, and bowling noballs and wide balls. The player who scores the highest point total as a bowler receives the “bowling title”. The player who scores the highest point total as a batsman receives the “batting title”. The player with the highest combined point total from bowling, batting, and fielding is the overall winner.

Description

I. CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §119(e), of applicants' provisional U.S. patent application Ser. No. 60/696,748, filed Jul. 6, 2005, entitled “cricket game allowing group of players to compete against each other while providing entertainment for the audience and players,” which is incorporated in to this application by this reference in its entirety, for all purposes.

This application describes a modified cricket game that allows a group of players to compete individually against each other while providing entertainment for the audience and players. More particularly the application describes a modified cricket game that directly measures an individual player's overall skills as well as batting and bowling skills.

II. BACKGROUND

Currently, cricket players are ranked based upon statistics from past games. However, there is no method for players to compete against each other to test their abilities or skills in the game and have a direct way to measure their ranking based on skills.

A cricket player's skills are measured in three areas, bowling, batting, and fielding. A cricket game involves batsmen, bowlers, a wicket keeper, and fielders. A cricket player with combined skills of batting, bowling and fielding is called an “All rounder”. The objective of the cricket game is to hit a ball bowled by the bowler and score runs by running between wickets or by hitting beyond a clearly marked line around the field. This clearly marked line around the field is called the boundary line. In the cricket game, a hit that flies over the boundary line and has its first bounce outside the boundary line records six runs while a hit that rolls on the ground and passes the boundary line records four runs. While the batting team players hit and collect runs, the fielding team bowlers and players try to get batsmen out, while trying to limit runs scored by the batting team. Once the first team finishes batting by either completing a set number of overs of batting or by whole side getting out the second team players get their turn to bat. In traditional cricket game a six balls bowled by a bowler is called an over. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

Many other professional games such as baseball and basketball have a short version of the game to measure and compare individual player's skills. More importantly these short version games provide fast pace entertainment to the audience. For example, Baseball has a game known as “Home Run Derby”. This game allows baseball players to compete each other on their skill of power hitting. Another example is a “Slam Dunk” contest in basketball. These games are very successful and attract many fans. More importantly these short versions help to increase the interest of the game among the general public. Examples of such games can be found in the prior arts. U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,394 to Jackson, et al. describes a baseball hitting game. U.S. Pat. No. 5,803,839 to Palmer, et al. describes a backyard base ball game. U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,801 to Negron describes a baseball home run contest game.

III. SUMMARY

The modified cricket game involves many aspects of a conventional cricket game, including many of the rules. Cricket fans have long admired the all round performance of cricket players. The rules of the modified cricket game reward an individual player's ability to score runs, to bowl without giving runs, to get batsmen out, and to field. The modified cricket game pits individual players against each other rather than one team against another. Further, the pace of the action in the modified cricket game is considerably faster, which provides exciting entertainment to the audience as well as players.

IV. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The modified cricket game may include a number of features that differ from traditional cricket, including:

• • only one batsman is batting and running between wickets any time during the game;
  • only one bowling wicket and one bawling wicket are present throughout the game;
  • every player wears a number which can be read from the stand;
  • all players stay in the field and play the game from start to end of the game;
  • optionally, the fielders keep rotating in the field positions while one player is batting;
  • some fielders keep exchanging in their field positions every time there is a change in the batsman or the bowler;
  • each player gets to play every field position in the field for equal number of balls bowled by a bowler;
  • a batsman scores points by hitting boundaries and running between wickets for in-field hits;
  • a bowler scores points by getting, batsmen out,
  • a fielder scores points by catching a fly ball and recording an out for the batsman as well as for the bowler;
  • a batsman scores negative points by getting out;
  • a bowler scores negative points by batsmen scoring runs;
  • a bowler scores negative points by violating standard bowling rules and bowl wide or noballs;
  • a fielder scores negative points by dropping a fly ball;
  • a fielder scores negative points by miss-fielding and allowing a boundary;
  • a group of players play the game while maintaining individual scores;
  • a player who plays as the batsman hits the balls bowled by the other players playing the game;
  • every player gets to hit the same number of balls;
  • every player gets to bowl the same number of balls;
  • the player who scores the most points from batting skills wins the batting title;
  • the player who allows the least points from bowling skills wins the bowling title;
  • the player who scores the most overall points by his/her bowling, batting and fielding skills at the end of the game will be the overall winner;
  • optionally, the game can be played with a non-competing player in the wicket keeper position throughout the game;
  • the use of a special score sheet to enter scores;
  • the score sheet can be programmed into a Microsoft Excel worksheet which enables to select winners and the rankings without any delay at the end of the game;
  • the game can be played within a few hours time;
  • the length of the game can be controlled by the number of balls bowled by an individual player;
  • the individual players have independent sponsors;
  • enabling individual players to showcase their cricket skills in bowling, batting, and fielding;
  • increasing the commercial interest in cricket without scarifying the integrity of cricket; and
  • helping to develop “All round” cricketers in the cricket game.

The features above among others are described in connection with the figures included in the application. FIG. 1 illustrates a cricket field 12 for the invented game 10 which consists of a boundary line 14, a pitch 15, a bowling wicket 16, and a batting wicket 18. FIG. 2 illustrates a cricket field 12 for the invented game 10 marked with various field positions A 20 through L 31 in the field. Batsman position A 20 is located in front of the batting wicket 18. Bowler position B 21 is located behind the bowling wicket 16. Wicket Keeper position C 22 is located behind the batting wicket 18. There are another nine field positions D 23 through L 31 located in the cricket field 12. All these field positions A 20 through L 31 are located inside the boundary line 14. There are all together twelve field positions A 20 through L 31 in the current invention. Out of these twelve positions only three field positions are in fixed locations. They are batsman position A 20, bowler position B 21 and wicket keeper position C 22.

FIG. 3 illustrates a cricket field 12 for the invented game 10 where twelve players (P1) 32 through (P12) 43 have taken their positions to start the game. Player one (P1) 32 has taken the batsman position A 20. Player two (P2) 33 has taken the bowler position B 21. Player three (P3) 34 has taken the wicket keeper position C 22. Player four (P4) 35 through player twelve (P12) 43 have taken rest of the nine field positions D 23 through L 31.

FIG. 3 through FIG. 13 illustrate how players move in the invented game 10 in the cricket field 12 during the batting turn of the player one (P1) 32. FIG. 4 through FIG. 13 further show that when player one (P1) 32 plays the position of the batsman A 20 player two (P2) 33 through player twelve (P12) 43 gets a turn to play the bowler position B 21. Player one's (P1) 32 turn to play the batsman position A 20 ends once the player twelve (P12) 43 finishes his/her position as the bowler B 21 bowling to player one (P1) 32. An alternative embodiment of the game 10 is to keep the player at wicket keeper position C 22 position unchanged during the game 10. In this embodiment of the game 10 the player at the wicket keeper position C 22 does not compete with other players.

An alternative embodiment of the game 10 is to let player at the bowler position B 21 keep bowling to other players one at a time who moves to the batsman position A 20 and face a set number of balls bowled by the player at the bowler position B 21. Once the player at the bowler position B 21 finish bowling to all other players another player move to the bowler position B 21.

FIG. 14 illustrates player two (P2) 33 at the batsman position A 20 for the first time. FIG. 13 through FIG. 24 illustrates how players move in the cricket field 12 during the batting turn of the player two (P2) 33. FIG. 25 shows player three (P3) 34 in action at the batsman position A 20 for the first time facing player one (P1) 32 at the bowler position B 21. It also shows how other players move in the field to get player three (P3) 34 to the batsman position 20.

FIG. 3 shows player four (P4) 35 playing at the position D 23. FIG. 6 shows player four (P4) 35 playing at the position E 24. FIG. 17 shows player four (P4) 35 playing at the position F 25. FIG. 28 shows player four (P4) 35 playing at the position G 26. During the invented game 10 player four (P4) 35 keeps moving to different field positions and at the end of the game player four (P4) complete playing at all the field positions A 20 through L 31. At the same time all other players also get to play all field positions.

The game 10 continues following the pattern illustrated in FIG. 3 through FIG. 24 with each player moving to the batsman position A 20. When player twelve (P12) 43 complete playing the batsman position A 20 the invented game 10 ends.

FIG. 29 shows the score sheet 50 for the game 10. This score sheet 50 can be programmed into an Excel worksheet score card 52 (FIG. 30A and FIG. 30B) which can be also used during the game 10 to enter scores. Use of Excel worksheet score card 52 makes it easier to select the winners at the end of the game 10. Since Excel worksheet is programmed to do the computations required to find the winners, it takes only a short time after the game to find the winners. If score sheet 50 is used to record the scores it takes little longer time to do the computations and identify the winners. All computations are done according to the game rules summarized in the table below. The game 10 is played according to the traditional cricket game rules with exception of the game rules shown in the table below. FIG. 31 shows a sample completed score card 56. In that sample completed score card 56 game winner was the player number 4 with a score of 7, the batting title was won by the player number 9 with a score of 16, and the bowling title was won by the player number 12 with a score of 2.

Rules for the Cricket Derby ™ (CricDerby ™)
1.	Up to twelve players in the field including batsman and bowler.
2.	Each player gets equal number of balls to hit. These balls are bowled by the other players (all players
	in the field bowl equal number of balls to the player who is batting).
3.	Each clean bowled out gives two points to the bowler and two negative points to the batsman.
4.	Each fly ball out gives one point to the player who caught the ball and two points to the bowler.
5.	A drop catch give one negative point to the fielder who drop the catch.
6.	If a miss fielding allows a boundary, one negative point records to the fielder.
7.	Each run out gets one points to the fielder who records it. In case of an assisted run out, both fielders
	get one point.
8.	Game is played under regular cricket rules accept the rules stated here.
9.	A bowler is allowed to move fielders before his or her delivery but no switching of players.
10.	Noballs and wide balls count negative runs to the bowler.
11.	Batsman does not record extra runs; runs should score off the bat.
12.	Runouts should be recorded from the running wicket.
13.	Each delivery must be delivered within 60 seconds.
14.	Each player must wear a number during the game and the numbers are assigned in a random order.
	Player wearing number one start batting and number two player start bowling.
15.	At the beginning of the game each player is assigned a field position and as the game goes on these
	positions keeps rotating according to a predetermined plan which is based on players' assigned
	numbers.
16.	Game should be played without any breaks.
17.	Scoring should be done in the standard Cricket Derby ™ scorecard. The bowling title goes to the
	player who gives away least points and player who scores the most points gets the batting title. The
	Cricket Derby ™ Winner is the one who gets the highest combined score from batting, bowling and
	fielding
18.	Tie breakers: In case of a tie in bowling or batting ranking, two way or multiple ways, individual
	performance against tied players will determine the final ranking as described below:
3-way tie in bowling ranking compares scores against each other.
Step 1
	#1	#5	#6
#1	x	1	4	=5	#1 will rank above #5 & #6
#5	W	x	2	=0
#6	2	1	x	=3
Step 2
	#5	#6
#5	x	2	=2	#5 will rank above #6
#6	1	x	=1
A.   if there are further ties after above steps in the bowling ranking then the following tie breakers
come in that order.
Highest wicket taker
Lowest extras given
Highest number of catch taker
These tie breakers should finalize the ranking in bowling.
B.   If there are further ties after above steps in the batting ranking then the following tie breakers
come in that order.
1. Least number of outs
2. Highest number of boundaries
3. Highest number of catch taker
These tie breakers should finalize the ranking in batting.
Once ranking in the batting and bowling are finalized, ties in the final ranking will be break according to
the batting ranking.

While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claims, it will be understood that various omissions, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the game illustrated and in its execution can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the sprit of the invention.

Claims

1. A method of playing a cricket ball game comprising:

A. providing a playing field for cricket game including; a. a boundary line to mark the limits of the playing area, b. two wickets facing each in the middle of the playing field, c. a pitch where wickets are set up and bowling and running between wickets occurs,

B. positioning a plurality of players in various field positions including bowler, batsman, wicket keeper and fielders;

C. keeping all the players on the playing field throughout play from the start to end of the game.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of having each of the players take a turn as a batsman such that:

A. the batsman faces an equal number of balls bowled by every other player; and

B. the batsman continues to bat until every other competing player on the field complete bowling a set number of balls.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of having each of the players take a turn as a bowler such that the bowler bowls a predetermined number of balls to every other competing player on the field.