When it comes to overs, wickets and googlys, Lauren Steele is stumped.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Steele said. "It's going to take some getting used to, but it will be fun. It's fun to try something different."

On this sun-drenched Saturday afternoon on the campus of Slippery Rock University, Steele is getting a crash course on the second most popular sport on the planet: cricket.

Yes, cricket.

Steele, who played soccer at SRU and is a graduate student at the university, picks up a cricket bat that looks like a giant paddle, digs her feet into the crease in front of a wooden wicket and flails at a cricket ball hurled toward her by a "bowler."

It doesn't take her long, though, to become a seasoned batsman, sending the ball soaring through the air with a mighty swing.

Just the fact that cricket, which is most popular inEngland and lands once dominated by the British Empire, is being played in Slippery Rock is a novelty. Several passers-by stop to gawk at the match being played on a field in the shadow of Morrow Field House.

"I played a couple of weeks ago, and it was pretty amazing how many people who were playing football or stuff like that stopped and started watching us," said Usman Ahmad, an international student from Lahore, Pakistan.

Ahmad is no stranger to cricket. In Pakistan, the sport is played "in the streets, in the towns, in the yards. It's one of the national sports," he said.

And now it is being played in Slippery Rock.

Want to play cricket?

The cricket club in Slippery Rock is the brainchild of Matthew Onega.

The Slippery Rock resident, who now works for the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council teaching English to foreign students and refugees, learned the game while serving in the Peace Corps inAfrica from 2003 to 2005.

Onega played on a team made up of residents of the small village in which he served. By the end of his time in Africa, he was playing with his home village against surrounding villages.

His teammates allowed him to bat first, which is a prestigious position in the world of cricket.

Onega said it took him about two years to feel comfortable playing the sport.

"Coming from a country where we are taught to throw a baseball, the bowling is actually much different," Onega said. "The action is an overhead throw. You must throw over your shoulder, or it's an illegal ball. And you can't bend your elbow. That is the most difficult part for me. The batting, it just takes a lot of repetition."

When Onega returned to the United States and settled in Slippery Rock with his wife, Sunita Peacock, a professor at SRU, he still had the urge to play cricket.

He was surprised at how much interest there was in the sport, not just from international students at the university hungry to play the game again, but also from those who had never played cricket.

"Just one call got 10 guys," Onega said. "That was encouraging."

Finding equipment, though, proved to be a tougher task.

Onega had to buy all of the equipment — the wickets, regulation and practice balls and bats — online from India.

"You can't go into your local sporting goods story and get cricket equipment," Onega said.

The club has about 15 members now. With summer here and the international student population dwindling, Onega hopes to have full 11-on-11 games in the fall when students return to campus.

Most of the players are just happy to have the chance to play cricket at all.

Swinging again

Ahmad, a junior finance and business major at SRU, thought his cricket playing days were over once he touched ground in the United States.

"I was pretty excited and thrilled," Ahmad said. "It was really strange at the same time because I've been here for 2Z\x years and this was the first time someone mentioned the name cricket, especially coming from an American. It was really exciting to hear how (Onega) got involved in cricket."

The same was true of Nick Ashenden, who grew up in England but moved to the United States when he was in his early 20s.

The 46-year-old had long stopped thinking of playing cricket until he received an e-mail from a friend about the club in Slippery Rock.

Almost 30 years had passed since Ashenden had played cricket. Yet, here he was Saturday bowling with the best of them.

"I haven't played since I was in high school," Ashenden said. "I think my mind will know what to do. I'm just not sure the body can keep up with it.

"I thought I would never play again."

Melting pot

By the end of the day, Steele was racing between wickets trying to score runs for her team before they were out of overs — usually 50 sets of six pitches. However, they threw fewer on this day to speed up the game.

Steele did well hitting the googlys — pitches that bounce from left to right from the bowler.

But, she was eventually stumped — the cricket ball hitting the wicket behind her for an automatic out.

What was important, though, wasn't the final run tally.

Cricket was being played inSlippery Rock, and players from the United States, England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were on the same field, enjoying a common sport.

"To have different people playing and unite is very exciting," Ahmad said.

• <B>All out:</B> Term used when 10 batsmen have made outs.• <B>All-rounder:</B> A player who excels at both batting and bowling.• <B>Bail:</B> One of the two small pieces of wood balanced on top of the stumps of the wicket. The bails fall if the ball touches the wicket.• <B>Batsman:</B> There are 11 batsmen in total and two batsmen on the pitch at all times.• <B>Bowler:</B> Cricket's equivalent of a baseball pitcher. He or she must bowl overhand with a straight-arm motion. The bowler's goal is to get the cricket ball past the batsman and hit the wicket for an automatic out.• <B>Googly:</B> When a bowler puts a left-to-right spin on a bowl. One of the hardest bowls to hit.• <B>Innings:</B> An inning ends once 10 batsmen on one team are out. In a one-day competition, each team has one inning.• <B>Over:</B> An over consists of six balls. No bowler can bowl more than 10 overs. Each team has 50 overs.• <B>Pitch:</B> Rectangular area on which the bowler and batsman face off.• <B>Runs:</B> To score a run, the batsman must hit the ball and run to the opposite wicket while his non-hitting batsman runs to the other wicket. They can do this multiple times on a hit ball. Both runners must touch the ground behind the crease with their bats or their bodies to count a run. A batsman can chose not to run.• <B>Run out:</B> Type of out that is recorded when a batsman attempts to go for a run, but the fieldsmen knock the bails off the wicket before the batsman reaches it.• <B>Stump:</B> One of three pegs that form the wicket• <B>Stumped:</B> When a batsman takes a swing, misses and the ball hits the wicket. The equivalent to a strikeout in baseball.• <B>Wicket:</B> Made up of stumps and bails. There are two, situated 22 yards apart.