Thanks to the Herald Sun for this bit.
- You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
- Each man that's in the side that's in the field goes out and when he's out comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
- When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
- When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
- Sometimes, there are men still in and not out.
- There are men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
- Depending on the weather and the light, the umpires can also send everybody in, no matter if they're in or out.
- When both sides have been in and all the men are out (including those who are not out), then the game is finished.
Seriously... Eleven men in white shirts, shorts and funny hats stand on an oval-shaped patch of grass about 400m round. Two other men with heavy padding and bats stand out in the centre on turf, next to sticks of wood called stumps. One man out of the eleven takes a ball that is made of leather and cork. He throws it at one of the two, who tries to hit it away. If the ball hits the stumps, or the ball is hit straight into the hands of one of the eleven, the one who hit it is out. If not, he can run and score points that are also called runs. A typical score is 300. One the man who is bowling bowls 6, they swap him with another man out of the eleven. The other eleven go to opposite sides of the oval and it all starts again. If one of the two goes out, he is replaced by a man from his team, also made up of eleven people. However, when only one man is still in (ie. hasn't gone out), the two teams swap over. The winner is the team to score the most amount of runs, either in one innings each or two innings each.
This was made purely for the benefit of people from the USA.