Cricket (sport)

Cricket is a global team sport that originated in England. It is widely perceived as a men's sport but in fact women's cricket, which is organised and played separately, has also achieved international standard. Cricket is hugely popular in those countries where major playing standards have been achieved and where Test cricket is played: i.e., Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, India, the West Indies, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. The sport is also well-established in several other countries which operate at international level but as yet do not play Test cricket, including United States, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Argentina, Namibia and the Netherlands.

Cricket has large participation with numerous minor competitions at all age levels widespread in all the countries in which it is played. It is one of the world's greatest spectator sports and attracts massive media coverage. Its social and cultural influence is considerable and many leading players have acquired "celebrity status". Cricket's global spread is directly attributable to the British Empire. It is generally viewed as the quintessential English sport that has followed British colonists, traders and military expeditions everywhere. It is thus no coincidence that it is mostly found in English-speaking countries.

Cricket is a multi-faceted sport and its rules allow for many variations of contest and competition according to duration, location, timing, playing standards, qualification and other factors. In very broad terms, cricket can be divided into major cricket and minor cricket based on playing standards. But the most important division is between matches in which the teams have two innings apiece and those in which they have a single innings each. The former has a duration of three to five days (there have been examples of "timeless" matches too); the latter, known as limited overs cricket, has a planned duration of one day only (they can be extended if necessary due to bad weather, etc.). Test matches have a duration of up to five days.

Rules and objectives

A cricket match is played between two teams of eleven players each on a field of variable size. The key action takes place in a specially prepared area of the field (generally in the centre) that is called the pitch. At either end of the pitch, 22 yards apart, are placed the wickets. These serve as a target to be bowled at by the bowling aka fielding side (i.e., team) and defended by the batsman who represents the batting side. Briefly, the wicket consists of three wooden stumps placed in a straight line and surmounted by two wooden bails; its total height including bails is 28.5 inches and the combined width of the three stumps is 9 inches. Lines aka creases are painted onto the pitch around the wicket areas to define the batsman's "safe territory" and to determine the limit of the bowler's approach.

Scoring is achieved by accumulating runs and, in simple terms, the object of each team is to score more runs than the other team and so win the game. However, in certain types of cricket, it is also necessary to completely "dismiss" the other team in order to win the match which would otherwise be drawn.

A bowler delivers the ball from his end of the pitch towards the batsman who, armed with a bat, is "on strike" at the other end. The bowler must employ a straight-armed action to "bowl" the ball, which is a hard leather seamed spheroid projectile with a circumference limit of 9 inches.

The batsman's primary concern is to prevent the ball hitting the wicket and secondarily to score runs by hitting the ball with his bat.........

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Origin and development

According to the former British Prime Minister John Major in his book entitled More Than A Game, cricket is "a club striking a ball (like) the ancient games of club-ball, stool-ball, trap-ball, stob-ball". As he says, each of these have at times been described as "early cricket".

Cricket has an immemorial existence. It was "invented" and developed in England, but ultimately has spread to more than 100 countries. It is generally believed that it began as a children's game and, despite some possibly spurious earlier references, it was first definitely mentioned in 1597 as a game played by boys at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, Surrey around 1550. It is the world's oldest professional team sport. Having been a boy's game in 1550, it became an adult game in the early 17th century and then, almost certainly, a professional sport in or soon after 1660 in the wake of the Restoration.

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Bibliography

• More Than A Game by John Major

External Sources

• From Lads to Lord's