As we noted in Explaining Cricket Stats: Part One, you can easily get lost in the thicket of statistics in either sport. (“You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy?” as James Joyce tries to calm his readers in Finnegans Wake.) Much better to take yourself to a game, or watch it on television, and let either sport work their magic on your imaginations. But, assuming you’ve got a rough idea of what’s going on in Part One, let’s move on to another screen capture. Slide two, please.

We’re now a little further on in the game. (Read Part One for essential details.) This is the tenth over, and it’s the six ball. So far, the Australians have only scored one run in it (on the third ball), which tells me they’re making very heavy weather of the first Powerplay (which is just about to end). Shane Watson, who’s facing, has scored 25 runs from 37 balls and Brad Haddin 14 from 22. Now, we’re not getting any information about the bowler’s stats here. As we said in Part One, one-day games restrict each bowler to only 10 overs (or 60 legal balls). But the captain of the fielding team (he’s the one who directs the plays in cricket, and not the manager) can switch his bowlers around. Nor do they have to bowl all 10 allotted overs. You can bring them on and take them off with the kind of freedom that baseball managers would die for. By the way, since we’re getting technical here, you should know that the Indian fielder standing by the catcher is in the fielding position called the “slip.” He’s there to catch the ball on the fly, if it comes off the batsman’s bat or glove. And, yes, there is no such thing as foul territory in cricket: you can hit the ball anywhere, and you can be caught anywhere.