Cricket is truly rich in tradition. Cricket, through time, has become a pure abstraction of completely fickle and arbitrary rules. Cricket means nothing other than in and of itself. It exists simply to be itself and be beautiful. Like a great painting, cricket can be comprehended fairly readily, but it is rich, detailed and complex enough to be appreciated for a lifetime.
Cricket is a chess match with bat and ball.
But you don't need to learn 48,000 different, boring tactics to get a feel for it. It's old fashioned, I know, but cricket is still the bastion of good sportsmanship. Unfair calls and bad luck were considered part of the game and a true test of a gentleman's character. Like all sports, it can divide, but more often it unifies . Cricket is incomprehensible to Americans.