cricket:
By Marcus K. Williams
cricket, England’s national summer sport, which is now played throughout the world, particularly in Australia, India, Pakistan, the West Indies, and the British Isles.
Cricket is played with a bat and ball and involves two competing sides (teams) of 11 players. The field is oval with a rectangular area in the middle, known as the pitch, that is 22 yards (20.12 metres) by 10 feet (3.04 metres) wide. Two sets of three sticks, called wickets, are set in the ground at each end of the pitch. Across the top of each wicket lie horizontal pieces called bails. The sides take turns at batting and bowling (pitching); each turn is called an “innings” (always plural). Sides have one or two innings each, depending on the prearranged duration of the match, the object being to score the most runs. The bowlers, delivering the ball with a straight arm, try to break (hit) the wicket with the ball so that the bails fall. This is one of several ways that the batsman is dismissed, or put out. A bowler delivers six balls at one wicket (thus completing an “over”), then a different player from his side bowls six balls to the opposite wicket. The batting side defends its wicket.
There are two batsman up at a time, and the batsman being bowled to (the striker) tries to hit the ball away from the wicket. A hit may be defensive or offensive. A defensive hit may protect the wicket but leave the batsmen no time to run to the opposite wicket. In that case the batsmen need not run, and play will resume with another bowl. If the batsman can make an offensive hit, he and the second batsman (the nonstriker) at the other wicket change places. Each time both batsmen can reach the opposite wicket, one run is scored. Providing they have enough time without being caught out and dismissed, the batsmen may continue to cross back and forth between the wickets, earning an additional run for each time both reach the opposite side. There is an outside boundary around the cricket field. A ball hit to or beyond the boundary scores four points if it hits the ground and then reaches the boundary, six points if it reaches the boundary from the air (a fly ball). The team with the highest number of runs wins a match. Should both teams be unable to complete their number of innings before the time allotted, the match is declared a draw. Scores in the hundreds are common in cricket.
Matches in cricket can range from informal weekend afternoon encounters on village greens to top-level international contests spread over five days in Test matches and played by leading professional players in grand stadiums.
History
Cricket is believed to have begun possibly as early as the 13th century as a game in which country boys bowled at a tree stump or at the hurdle gate into a sheep pen. This gate consisted of two uprights and a crossbar resting on the slotted tops; the crossbar was called a bail and the entire gate a wicket. The fact that the bail could be dislodged when the wicket was struck made this preferable to the stump, which name was later applied to the hurdle uprights. Early manuscripts differ about the size of the wicket, which acquired a third stump in the 1770s, but by 1706 the pitch—the area between the wickets—was 22 yards long.
The ball, once presumably a stone, has remained much the same since the 17th century. Its modern weight of between 5.5 and 5.75 ounces (156 and 163 grams) was established in 1774.
The primitive bat was no doubt a shaped branch of a tree, resembling a modern hockey stick but considerably longer and heavier. The change to a straight bat was made to defend against length bowling, which had evolved with cricketers in Hambledon, a small village in southern England. The bat was shortened in the handle and straightened and broadened in the blade, which led to forward play, driving, and cutting. As bowling technique was not very advanced during this period, batting dominated bowling through the 18th century.
The earliest reference to an 11-a-side match, played in Sussex for a stake of 50 guineas, dates from 1697. In 1709 Kent met Surrey in the first recorded intercounty match at Dartford, and it is probable that about this time a code of laws (rules) existed for the conduct of the game, although the earliest known version of such rules is dated 1744. Sources suggest that cricket was limited to the southern counties of England during the early 18th century, but its popularity grew and eventually spread to London, notably to the Artillery Ground, Finsbury, which saw a famous match between Kent and All-England in 1744. Heavy betting and disorderly crowds were common at matches.
The aforementioned Hambledon Club, playing in Hampshire on Broadhalfpenny Down, was the predominant cricket force in the second half of the 18th century before the rise of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in London. Formed from a cricket club that played at White Conduit Fields, the club moved to Lord’s Cricket Ground in St. Marylebone borough in 1787 and became the MCC and in the following year published its first revised code of laws. Lord’s, which was named after its founder, Thomas Lord, has had three locations over its history. Moving to the current ground in St. John’s Wood in 1814, Lord’s became the headquarters of world cricket.
In 1836 the first match of North counties versus South counties was played, providing clear evidence of the spread of cricket. In 1846 the All-England XI, founded by William Clarke of Nottingham, began touring the country, and from 1852, when some of the leading professionals (including John Wisden, who later compiled the first of the famous Wisden almanacs on cricketing) seceded to form the United All-England XI, these two teams monopolized the best cricket talent until the rise of county cricket. They supplied the players for the first English touring team overseas in 1859.
Technical development
Until early in the 19th century all bowling was underhand, and most bowlers favoured the high-tossed lob. Next came “the round-arm revolution,” in which many bowlers began raising the point at which they released the ball. Controversy raged furiously, and in 1835 the MCC rephrased the law to allow the hand to be raised as high as the shoulder. The new style led to a great increase in pace, or bowling speed. Gradually bowlers raised the hand higher and higher in defiance of the law. Matters were brought to a head in 1862 when an England team playing against Surrey left the field at London’s Kennington Oval in protest over a “no ball” call (i.e., an umpire’s decision that the bowler has thrown an illegal pitch). The argument centred on whether the bowler should be allowed to raise his arm above the shoulder. As a result of this controversy, the bowler was in 1864 officially accorded liberty to bowl overhand (but not to cock and straighten the arm). This change dramatically altered the game, making it yet more difficult for a batsman to judge the ball. Already a bowler was allowed to take a running start from any direction and for any distance. Once the bowler was allowed to release overhand, the ball could then reach speeds above 90 mph (145 km/hr). Though this is not as fast as the pitching speed in baseball, cricket has an additional twist in that the ball is usually delivered so as to bounce on the pitch (field) before the batsman can hit it. Thus, the ball may curve to the right or the left, bounce low or high, or spin toward or away from the batsman.
Batsmen learned to protect themselves with pads and batting gloves, and a cane handle increased the resilience of the bat. Only the best batsmen, however, could cope with fast bowling, because the poor condition of most pitches made it yet more difficult for a batsman to predict the motion of the ball. As the grounds improved, however, batsmen grew accustomed to the new bowling style and went on the offensive. Other new bowling styles were also discovered, causing batsmen to adjust their technique further.
In the early 20th century so many runs were being scored that debate ensued on reforming the “leg-before-wicket” law, which had been introduced in the 1774 laws to prohibit a batsman from using his body to prevent the ball from hitting his wicket. But the heavy scores were actually due to the performances of several outstanding batsmen, such as W.G. Grace, Sir John Berry Hobbs, and K.S. Ranjitsinhji (later the maharaja of Nawanagar). This was cricket’s golden age.
In the 20th century there was a series of attempts to aid the bowler and quicken the tempo of the game. Nevertheless, the game by the mid-20th century was characterized not by overwhelming offense but by defensive play on both sides and by a slow pace. In an attempt to shore up a declining fan base, one-day, or limited-overs, cricket was introduced. One-day cricket had first been played internationally when, after a Test match was rained out for the first days, on the last scheduled day of play a limited-overs match was held in order to give the fans some game to watch. The response was enthusiastic, and one-day cricket came into being. In this version of cricket the limited number of overs (usually 50 per side) leads to a faster paced though much-altered game. In one-day cricket there are some restrictions on placement of fielders. This led to new batting styles, such as the paddle shot (wherein the ball is hit behind the wicket because there are usually no fielders there) and the lofted shot (where the batsman tries to hit the ball past the fielders and over their heads). Twenty20 (T20), a style of one-day cricket consisting of 20 overs per side, debuted in 2003 and quickly became an international sensation. The first Twenty20 world championship was held in 2007, and one-day cricket, particularly Twenty20, became more popular than Test matches worldwide, although Test cricket retained a large following in England. The pace of Test matches increased dramatically in the late 20th century with the introduction of new bowling strategies.
Organization of sport and types of competition
County and university cricket
Some of the earliest organized cricket matches were between amateur and professional players. From 1806 (annually from 1819) to 1962, the Gentlemen-versus-Players match pitted the best amateurs against the best professionals. The series was ended in 1962 when the MCC and the counties abandoned the distinction between amateurs and professionals. Other early cricket matches took place between British universities. The Oxford-versus-Cambridge match, for example, has been played mainly at Lord’s since 1827 and became a high point of the summer season in London.
University cricket was a kind of nursery for county cricket—i.e., matches between the various counties of England. Although the press acclaimed a “champion county” (Sussex) as early as 1827, qualification rules for county cricket were not laid down until 1873, and it was only in 1890 that the format of the county championship was formalized by the counties themselves. Gloucestershire dominated the 1870s, thanks to W.G. Grace and his brothers E.M. and G.F. Grace. From the 1880s to World War I, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Kent, and Middlesex constituted the Big Six that dominated county cricket. After World War I the northern counties, led by Yorkshire and Lancashire, largely professional teams, were the leaders. Surrey, with seven successive championships, dominated in the 1950s and Yorkshire in the 1960s, followed by Kent and Middlesex in the 1970s. The 1980s were dominated by Middlesex, Worcestershire, Essex, and Nottinghamshire. Other counties in first-class county cricket are Leicestershire, Somerset, Hampshire, Durham, Derbyshire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Northamptonshire, and Glamorgan.
After a postwar boom, slow play and lower numbers of runs characterized the 1950s, and this defensive nature of county cricket led to progressively decreased attendance. In the 1960s the MCC and the counties introduced a one-day knockout competition—called the Gillette Cup (1963–1980), the NatWest Bank Trophy (1981–2000), the C&G Trophy (2000–06), and the Friends Provident Trophy (2006–09)—and a separate Sunday afternoon league (the two competitions were merged in 2010 as the Clydesdale Bank 40), which revived public interest, although most counties remained dependent financially on proceeds from football pools and money received from Test matches and broadcasting fees. The immediate registration of overseas players was permitted, and each county, as of the early 1980s, was allowed one such player, who could, however, still play for his national team. The change worked well for the counties, and it also strengthened the national teams for whom those players appeared. In county cricket, bonus points were created to encourage batsmen and bowlers to play less defensively, and from 1988, to help the development of young batsmen and spin bowlers, four-day games increasingly replaced the three-day format. The longer game gives batsmen more time to build an innings and relieves them of the pressure to score runs quickly. Spin bowlers benefit from the longer game because the pitch wears as the game progresses and permits greater spin.
The Cricket Council and the ECB
A reorganization of English cricket took place in 1969, resulting in the end of the MCC’s long reign as the controlling body of the game, though the organization still retains responsibility for the laws. With the establishment of the Sports Council (a government agency charged with control of sports in Great Britain) and with the possibility of obtaining government aid for cricket, the MCC was asked to create a governing body for the game along the lines generally accepted by other sports in Great Britain. The Cricket Council, comprising the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB), the National Cricket Association (NCA), and the MCC, was the result of these efforts. The TCCB, which amalgamated the Advisory County Cricket Committee and the Board of Control of Test Matches at Home, had responsibility for all first-class and minor-counties cricket in England and for overseas tours. The NCA consisted of representatives from clubs, schools, armed services cricket, umpires, and the Women’s Cricket Association. In 1997 there was another reorganization, and the TCCB, the NCA, and the Cricket Council were all subsumed under the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
International cricket
International cricket in the early part of the 20th century was dominated by the original members of the Imperial Cricket Conference, England, Australia, and South Africa. Later renamed the International Cricket Conference and then the International Cricket Council, the ICC gradually took over more responsibility for the administration of the game and shifted its power base from west to east. When in 2005 the ICC moved its offices from Lord’s in London—home of the MCC, the game’s original rulers and still its lawmakers—to Dubai, the shift away from the old ways of governance was complete. The priorities of the game changed too. By the turn of the 21st century, only Australia and England still played Test cricket to full houses. Everywhere else, and particularly in India and Pakistan, crowds flocked to see limited-overs internationals. Test cricket became almost an afterthought. Although the power to change the laws of the game have remained with the MCC, the ICC developed its own Code of Conduct for players, officials, and administrators, which sets out disciplinary procedures and protects the spirit of the game. It also organized major international tournaments, including the one-day and Twenty20 World Cups and the Champions Trophy. In 2000 the ICC set up the Anti-Corruption Unit (renamed the Anti-Corruption Unit and Security Unit in 2003) to combat the growing threat of illegal gambling and match fixing. At the beginning of the 2010s, the ICC had 10 full members and dozens of associate and affiliate members.
One of the founding members of the ICC, Australia remains one of its most powerful countries both on and off the field. The history of cricket in Australia dates to 1803 when the game was introduced by the crew of a British ship. The first intercolonial match took place in 1851 between Victoria and Tasmania, and by the end of the 19th century teams from England were touring Australia regularly. The first official Test match was played in Melbourne in 1877 by Australia and England, beginning the oldest rivalry in international cricket, a series that became known as The Ashes (see Test Matches below).
Cricket is played throughout Australia, and matches are ferociously competitive at every level. All the great Australian players from Sir Don Bradman to Shane Warne developed their skills in club cricket before graduating to the state and national teams, and the Australian style of cricket is marked by aggressiveness with bat, ball, and, often, voice in an attempt to intimidate opponents. Through the 20th century, Australia produced a series of outstanding teams, and the country dominated international cricket into the new century, winning three successive one-day World Cups (1999–2007) and twice recording runs of 16 consecutive Test victories (1999–2001 and 2005–08). In 2005 England’s Test victory over Australia, the first since 1987, was celebrated with an open-top bus ride through the city of London
In June 2000 Bangladesh became the 10th country to be accorded full Test status. It played its first Test match in November of that year, against India in Dhaka. Known as the Tigers, the Bangladeshi team struggled to perform at the highest level, winning only three of its first 68 Tests. However, Bangladesh has defeated the nine countries that preceded it to Test status in one-day matches, a feat completed with a victory over England in Bristol in 2010. Bangladesh’s first appearance in an international tournament had come in England in the ICC Trophy competition for associate members in 1979. In 1997 Bangladesh won the trophy and qualified for the 1999 World Cup, beating Pakistan in the group stages. A domestic first-class tournament between six regional teams was established in 2000–01. Since Bangladesh gained Test status, cricket arguably has become the most popular sport in the country.
Cricket is played in every corner of India, on city streets, in village fields, and on maidans—open playing fields, the largest of which (such as the Azad, Cross, and Oval maidans in South Mumbai) can host dozens of overlapping matches. Historically, Indian cricketers have displayed a good eye and strong wrists, and Indian batsmen, most notably Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, have been some of the most productive and stylish in the history of cricket. The dry flat pitches of the subcontinent have also traditionally produced high-class spin bowlers.
The origins of the game in India date to the 18th century. A touring team led by the English gentleman cricketer Lord Hawke played a match against the “All India” team in January 1893. India played its first Test in 1932 and waited 20 years for its first Test victory, against England in Madras (now Chennai). The game developed so fast in India, however, that by the end of the 20th century India was one of the world’s foremost cricketing countries. With the growth of the Indian Premier League in the early 21st century, it became the undisputed home of Twenty20 cricket and the financial hub of the international game, though the popularity of Test cricket has declined dramatically in India. India’s prominence in one-day cricket was further confirmed when it won the Cricket World Cup in 2011.
Cricket has always taken second place to rugby in the sports priorities of New Zealanders, but, as in Australia, the game has a strong national structure in New Zealand. The long history of domestic cricket in the country is often dated from the first representative interprovincial match, between Auckland and Wellington, in 1860, though there is evidence that unofficial matches between provinces were played in New Zealand decades earlier. The NZ Cricket Council was formed in 1894 and was admitted to full membership of the ICC in 1926. With only a small base of players on which to draw, New Zealand has always struggled to compete with England and Australia in Test cricket. As in most cricketing countries, the one-day game has proved more popular in New Zealand. In Richard Hadlee, who was knighted in 1990, the country produced one of the greatest cricketers of any era.
The development of cricket in Pakistan has been chaotic, quixotic, and exotic in roughly equal measure. Under the leadership of Imran Khan, Pakistan won the 1992 World Cup, but often its cricket was blighted by political interference and scandal. A low point was reached in 2010: To begin with, the national team was in virtual exile, unable to persuade other countries to play in Pakistan for fear of terrorist attacks in the wake of an assault in Lahore on the visiting Sri Lankan team bus in March 2009 that left six policemen dead and several players injured. Moreover, three members of the Pakistani team touring England were involved in allegations of “spot fixing”—that is, fixing the results of certain bowls in return for money—and were banned by the ICC. Huge profits could be made in illegal betting markets in Asia by predicting the results of individual bowls. Only a few years earlier several Pakistan players also had been banned as a result of investigations over match fixing. Yet Pakistan has also produced a host of talented cricketers such as Khan, Wasim Akram, Abdul Qadir, and Inzamam-ul-Haq and has proved itself adept at Twenty20 cricket, winning the T20 World Cup in 2009.
South Africa played its first Test, against England in Port Elizabeth, as early as in 1889. Cricket has been at the heart of the country’s sporting culture ever since. When South Africa was banned from the ICC from 1970 to 1991 because of its apartheid policies, cricket administrators worked quietly to integrate nonwhite players into the system, which was based largely on traditional all-white schools and state teams. When apartheid was abolished, cricket was far more prepared to cope with the social and political changes than was rugby union. Makhaya Ntini, a world-class fast bowler, who made his international debut for South Africa in 1998 and played in more than 100 Tests, served as a role model for the new generation of black cricketers. On the other hand, in 2000 Hansie Cronje, the captain of South Africa, was banned for match fixing in a scandal that brought into question the integrity of South African cricket. It was not until 2003, when South Africa hosted a successful World Cup, that the rehabilitation of country’s cricketing reputation was complete. South Africa has always been a great exporter of cricketers, mainly to England. Allan Lamb and Robin Smith were prominent members of the England team in the 1980s and ’90s; Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott were mainstays of the Ashes-winning side of 2010.
Even before Test status was awarded to Sri Lanka in 1981, the island country was a popular destination for touring teams, particularly for English teams on the way to Australia by boat. Given the disadvantages of its relatively small population and of the civil war that disrupted life on the island for three decades, Sri Lanka developed into a top cricketing country with surprising speed. In 1996 it won the World Cup, beating Australia in the final by playing aggressive, innovative cricket under the inspired leadership of Arjuna Ranatunga. The victory instilled belief in a new generation of players that included Sanath Jayasuriya; Mahela Jayawardene, an elegant and aggressive batsmen; and Muttiah Muralitharan, who in 2010 became the first bowler to take 800 Test wickets. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 devastated the cricket-playing regions of southern Sri Lanka, including the Test match ground at Galle, and took the lives of many promising young players. Nonetheless, Sri Lanka recovered to reach the World Cup final again in 2007. Calamity struck again in 2009, when the Sri Lankan team’s bus was attacked by terrorists on the way to the ground for the second Test against Pakistan in Lahore.
Cricket has been a unifying force in the Caribbean since the West Indies became the fourth Test-playing side in 1928. The islands have generally played other sports as independent countries, but British colonial influence contributed to the formation of a united regional team. For a time in the 1970s and ’80s, when the West Indian team featured a quartet of fast bowlers—led by Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, and Joel Garner—and batsmen of the destructive capacity of Sir Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd, the West Indies were virtually unbeatable. Blessed with an abundance of talented players and true pitches, Caribbean cricket has always been played with an unorthodox flourish, seen most clearly in the batsmanship of Sir Garfield Sobers, Richards, and Brian Lara.
In the 21st century cricket declined in popularity in the West Indies, a result of a lack of strong administrative leadership and because of the increasing appeal of potentially more lucrative sports such as athletics (track and field), football (soccer) and basketball. After playing in the finals of the first three World Cups (1975, 1979, and 1983) and winning the first two, the West Indian team failed—with the exception of 1996—to reach even the knockout stage of subsequent World Cups, including in 2007, as the host of the event.
Until Test status was granted to Zimbabwe in 1992, the country’s best cricketers, such as Colin Bland, played for South Africa. Indeed, the history of the cricket in the two countries has been inextricably linked. Long before the newly independent and renamed Zimbabwe became an associate member of the ICC in 1980, teams representing its Rhodesian forerunner states had participated in the Currie Cup, the South African domestic first-class tournament (first in 1904–05, then in the early 1930s, and again after World War II). Competing in its first World Cup in 1983, Zimbabwe surprised the world by beating Australia, yet Graeme Hick, arguably the country’s best batsman, left shortly thereafter to play for England.
Zimbabwean cricket in the early 21st century has been marked by chaotic administration and political interference. In 2004 Heath Streak was sacked as captain of the national team, precipitating a crisis from which Zimbabwe took years to emerge, including an exile from Test cricket that began in 2006 and ended in 2011. The country’s political volatility during this period had much to do with the situation. In the 2003 World Cup, for example, England forfeited its match in Zimbabwe, citing security concerns. During the same tournament, two Zimbabwe players, Andy Flower and Henry Olonga, wore black armbands to “mourn the death of democracy” in their country.
The first Test match, played by two national teams, was between Australia and England in Melbourne in 1877, with Australia winning. When Australia again won at the Oval at Kennington, London, in 1882, the Sporting Times printed an obituary notice announcing that English cricket would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia, thus creating the “play for the Ashes.” The Ashes, kept in an urn at Lord’s irrespective of which country is victorious, are supposed to be those of a bail burned on the England tour of Australia in 1882–83. For the rest of the 19th century, the two countries met almost yearly. With W.G. Grace, the greatest cricketer of Victorian England, on its side, England was often too strong for the Australians, though Australia had the greatest bowler of this era in F.R. Spofforth and the first of the great wicketkeepers in J.McC. Blackham.
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