Sports activities improve your mood and improve your health. The main thing is to know the measure in everything. This advice is especially relevant for cricket fans who decide to play a beer match — a game where the points aren’t tallied on a scoreboard, but in pints (or cans) of beer.

Beer Match: The Basics

The beer match format emerged in club cricket when official games ended earlier than expected. Players, not wanting to disappoint the crowd that came to watch, decided to keep the fun going. In all team sports, sometimes after difficult matches, players are allowed to drink a glass of beer. So the idea to create a beer match appeared. These meetings are held in different formats to make it fun for the players to perform, and for the audience to watch what is happening:

• Reverse batting order.
• Every outfielder must bowl.
• Batsmen retire upon reaching 25 runs.

Athletes themselves can choose the amount of beer that is supposed for a certain success and its strength. The game even mirrors real cricket in some of its mechanics. For example:

• In traditional cricket, hitting the ball over the fence on the full earns 6 runs. In beer cricket, this might win you a large can of beer (around 450 ml).
• A ball that bounces before reaching the fence earns 4 runs in standard play; in beer cricket, it gets you a smaller beer (about 250 ml).

You can accumulate points by drinking any portion of beer, but there’s a catch. If a player visits the toilet, they’re considered “out” and lose a wicket. With 11 people involved in cricket in each team, going to the toilet 11 times during the game will mean being deprived of the opportunity to earn runs and continue participating in the match. Just like in traditional cricket, the goal is to score as many runs as possible while losing as few wickets as you can. In some cases, players are allowed to continue participating in the match even after 11 visits to the toilet, but without the opportunity to drink beer.