The dog days are almost over.

MLB’s stretch run is nearly upon us, NFL’s preseason wraps up this weekend, and if you haven’t heard: Caribbean Premier League cricket is in full swing! 🏏

This week, we’re chatting with Jomboy Media’s in-house cricket expert (and Aussie slang translator) Adam Bannon, who has everything you need to know to get started on your cricket journey.

Keep on scrolling for Adam’s tips, a peek into the creator group chat, and a round-up of the videos you might’ve missed from JM HQ.

Adam: So it's a cricket activation at Citi Field — set up in the bullpen area before a Mets game in September. Baseball players trying cricket for the first time, holding a cricket bat, facing a cricket bowler. It's in conjunction with Century Cricket, who are opening a new facility in Midtown — think TrackMan, but for cricket, with a giant screen. You can program the bowling machine to whatever speed you want — up to 100 miles an hour if you want it — and when you hit the ball it shows you your exit velo, launch angle, where it goes. There'll be some cricket pros down there too. It's just a way to get baseball players and baseball fans more integrated with cricket.

There's a lot tying into it. Ten years ago, a big cricket match got played at Citi Field — Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar, two of the greatest ever, led an exhibition match there, and it sold out. People came from all over the country to watch it, because you don't get to see those two on the same field together, let alone in America. Shane Warne has since passed away.

Part of this is kind of marking the anniversary of that game and bringing cricket back into that setting. There's also India's growth angle: MLB just signed Suryakumar Yadav — SKY, the captain of the Indian T20 cricket team — as an ambassador as part of MLB's push to grow in India.

Adam: We’re right around the halfway point. I think there's a good push coming from the Amazon Warriors. They're the always-a-bridesmaid kind of team — they've been to the most finals of any team, but they've only won one. So they're consistently in the top four, consistently getting to the final, consistently losing the final. That's kind of their trend. But they're looking very good this year. 

The Tridents were also undefeated up until Tuesday night, then there was a controversial call — the first controversial moment of the tournament so far — on a catch, which led to a big batting collapse, and the Tridents lost chasing a relatively easy score. But there are a lot of young West Indian players getting opportunities and playing really well. It's been very entertaining.

Adam: So there are seven teams, and the top four make the playoffs. It's bracket-style: the third and fourth seeds play an Eliminator, while the top two seeds play Qualifier 1. The winner of Qualifier 1 goes straight to the final — the loser gets a second chance in Qualifier 2 against whoever won the Eliminator. So it's really important to finish in the top four, and there are scenarios where a team can just sneak into the four and go on a run from there. Even if you're the best team all year — the Warriors went undefeated one year and still lost in the final. That's happened.

Adam: Really excited about Zachary Carter playing for the Tridents. Had a really good first game — he's getting the opportunity to open the batting, in a spot where the Tridents have two international superstars who could play that role, but instead they've given a young guy a shot, and I think he's got a lot of potential.

And then someone who's already arrived: Matthew Forde from St. Lucia Kings. He's taken 12 wickets. What stands out most watching him is his intensity — he's super pumped when he gets a wicket, and he's come through at pivotal moments in some games for the Kings this tournament. I didn't know much about him going in, but watching him play for the Kings in the CPL, I'm dialed in.

Adam: I'll go with the Tridents. Tridents beating the Amazon Warriors in the final.

Adam: Cricket's tough because the best players don't only play in one league — there are multiple leagues happening simultaneously across the world. Right now there's actually a brand new league that just launched — the ETPL — happening at the same time as the Caribbean (CPL). The Hundred in England, just wrapped up, which was happening while MLC in the US was going on, which finished right after the IPL in India, and that finished right around when SA20 was happening, which was around the same time as the Big Bash, which was happening around the same time as the Nepal Premier League. And there's probably another league I'm missing.

Got all that?

That's all happening in a single year. So it's tough to get behind one team when there are so many leagues.

If you want a starting point as a cricket fan, go to the IPL. It's the second-largest franchise league in the world, sitting between the NFL and MLB. It's a 70-game season — the longest of any of the franchise leagues — and it's home to the Indian players, who are generally the best in the world. 

Indian players play for their teams, and then each team is allowed up to eight overseas players, with four allowed to play in any given game out of an 11-man roster. So you're getting the best of the best in the world. And a lot of players actually give up international cricket to play the IPL instead. 

Also: Franchise cricket is still relatively new — back in the '90s and early 2000s, it was only international cricket, so you followed your national team. Americans don't really have a ranked national team to get behind, so the IPL is where I'd point people — and you have to pick one of the IPL teams.

If I had to point to the four most popular or interesting teams:

Those four — RCB, CSK, MI, and KKR — are the big four. You'll never actually hear people use the full team names, always just the initials.

Adam: The Nutbush. It's a dance — kind of our version of the Cotton-Eye Joe.

Adam: Great! We just snapped a seven-game losing streak, and Hunter Goodman just tied the all-time record for most home runs by a Rockies catcher in a season. Good way to finish!

Step back into the chat. We’re talking favorite players from teams that aren’t your own.

Who’s the one guy you secretly (or not-so-secretly) kinda, maybe, sometimes (always) root for?

The best of what came out of JM HQ, the Warehouse, and anywhere else we wandered out to over the last week.