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.

Global spread

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 significant player 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.

Governance rests primarily with the International Cricket Conference (ICC) which organises the sport worldwide via the domestic controlling bodies of the member countries.

The game of cricket and its 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 a 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. All eleven players on the fielding side take the field together. One of them is the wicketkeeper (or simply "keeper") who operates behind the wicket being defended by the batsman on strike. Besides the one currently bowling, the other fielders are tactically deployed by the team captain in certain positions around the field. Fielding positions are known by specific names such as slip, third man and long leg. The captain is the most important member of the fielding side as he determines all the tactics including who should bowl (and how); and he is responsible for setting the fielding places, though usually in consultation with the bowler.

At any one time, there are two batsmen in the playing area. One takes station at the striker's end to defend the wicket as above and to score runs if possible. His partner, the non-striker, is at the end where the bowler is operating.

The game is regulated by two umpires, one of whom stands behind the wicket at the bowler's end, the other in a position called square leg which is several yards behind the batsman on strike. When the bowler delivers the ball, the umpire at the wicket is between the bowler and the non-striker.

The primary concern of the batsman on strike (i.e., the "striker") is to prevent the ball hitting the wicket and secondarily to score runs by hitting the ball with his bat so that he and his partner have time to run from one end of the pitch to the other before the fielding side can return the ball. Each completed run increments the score. More than one run can be scored from a single hit but, while hits worth one to three runs are common, the size of the field is such that it is usually difficult to run four or more. To compensate for this, hits that reach the boundary of the field are awarded four runs if the ball touches the ground en route to the boundary or six runs if the ball clears the boundary on the full. Hits for five are unusual and generally rely on the help of "overthrows" by a fielder returning the ball. If an odd number of runs is scored by the striker, the two batsmen have changed ends and the one who was non-striker is now the striker. Only the striker can score individual runs but all runs are added to the team's total.

Additional runs can be gained by the batting team as "extras" or "sundries" by courtesy of the fielding side. This is achieved in four ways. A "no ball" is a penalty conceded by the bowler if he breaks the rules of bowling and counts as one extra. A "wide" is a delivery that is bowled so that the ball is out of the batsman's reach and is also a penalty worth one extra to the batting side. When the bowler delivers a no ball or a wide, his team suffer an additional penalty because that ball (i.e., delivery) has to be bowled again. A "bye" is scored as an extra if the batsman misses the ball but it goes past the wicket keeper and gives the batsmen time to run in the conventional way. More than one bye can be scored and if the ball goes all the way to the boundary it is four byes. A variation on the bye is the "leg bye" where the ball has hit the batsman's leg as it passes through. The mark of a good wicketkeeper is one who restricts the tally of byes to a minimum.

In theory, all eleven members of the batting side take a turn to bat but an innings can end before they all do so. The innings (always written in the plural form) is the term used for the collective performance of the batting side. Each team has one or two innings each depending on the type of contest being played. The term innings also applies to a batsman's individual performance and it is often said that a batsman had an innings (meaning score) of so many runs.

The bowler bowls the ball in sets of six deliveries (aka "balls") and each set of six balls is called an over. This name came about because the umpire calls "over" when six balls have been bowled. At this point, another bowler is deployed at the other end and the fielding side changes ends. A bowler cannot bowl two successive overs, although a bowler can bowl unchanged at the same end for several overs. The batsmen do not change ends and so the one who was non-striker is now the striker and vice-versa. The umpires also change positions so that the one was at square leg now stands behind the wicket at the non-striker's end and vice-versa.

The main aim of the bowler, supported by his fielders, is to dismiss the batsman. A batsman when dismissed is said to be "out" and that means he must leave the field of play and be replaced by the next batsman on his team. When ten batsmen have been dismissed (i.e., are out), then the whole team is dismissed and the innings is over. The last batsman, the one who has not been dismissed, is not allowed to continue alone as there must always be two batsmen "in".

There are several ways in which a batsman can be dismissed and some are so unusual that only a few instances of them exist in the whole history of the game. The most common forms of dismissal are "bowled", "caught", "leg before wicket" (lbw), "run out", "stumped" and "hit wicket". The unusual methods are "hit the ball twice", "obstructed the field", "handled the ball" and "timed out". If a batsman retires, usually due to injury, and cannot return he is actually "not out" and his retirement does not count as a dismissal, though in effect he has been dismissed because his innings is over. Substitute batsmen are not allowed, although substitute fielders are.

"Bowled" means that the bowler has hit the wicket with the ball. "Caught" means that the batsman hit the ball with his bat or with his hand and the ball was caught on the full by a member of the fielding side. "Leg before wicket" is complex but generally means that the batsman would have been bowled if the ball had not hit his leg first. "Run out" means that a fielder hit the wicket with the ball, usually by means of an accurate throw, while the batsman was out of his ground, usually while attempting a run. "Stumped" is similar except that it is done by the wicketkeeper after the batsman has missed the bowled ball and has stepped out of his ground; the keeper must break the wicket with the ball in his hand for a stumping. "Hit wicket" means simply that the batsman did just that. The four unusual dismissals are self-explanatory, all of them being breaches of the Laws by the batsman. "Timed out" usually means that the next batsman did not arrive at the wicket within two minutes of the previous one being dismissed.

It is usually the striker who is out when a dismissal occurs but the non-striker can be dismissed too, invariably by being run out.

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.

(to be continued)

Bibliography

• More Than A Game by John Major

External Sources

• From Lads to Lord's