Bat-and-ball game between two teams of 11 players each. It is played with a small solid ball and long flat-sided wooden bats, on a round or oval field, at the center of which is a finely mown pitch, 20 m/22 yd long. At each end of the pitch is a wicket made up of three upright wooden sticks (stumps), surmounted by two smaller sticks (bails). The object of the game is to score more runs than the opposing team. A run is normally scored by the batsman striking the ball and exchanging ends with his or her partner until the ball is returned by a fielder, or by hitting the ball to the boundary line for an automatic four or six runs.
A batsman stands at each wicket and is bowled a stipulated number of balls (usually six), after which another bowler bowls from the other wicket. A batsman can make an out in several ways. Games comprise either one or two innings per team. The exact origins are unknown. The first rules were drawn up in 1774 and modified following the formation of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 1787.
history
The exact origins of cricket are unknown, but it certainly dates back to the 16th century. The name is thought to have originated from the Anglo-Saxon word cricc, meaning a shepherds staff. The first players were the shepherds of southeast England, who used their crooks as bats and the wicket gate and movable bail of the sheep pens as a target for the bowlers.
In the 18th century, runs were recorded by notches cut on a stick. The wicket consisted of two stumps and a crosspiece (the third stump was added in the late 1770s). Until about 1773 bats retained the curve akin to a hockey stick, suited to deal with the prevalent underarm bowling of the time. By about 1780 the straight bat was in almost universal use to counter the advance in bowling technique whereby the ball rose from the pitch on a length. The first major alteration in the laws for which the MCC was responsible was the license given to the bowler in 1835 to raise his arm as high as the shoulder and bowl round-arm. Formerly he was compelled to deliver the ball underarm and the new method had for years been the subject of heated argument. This concession was the prelude to the legalization of overarm bowling 1864. Modern bat blades are made of willow (salix coerulea) with handles of compressed cane and rubber; early bats were in one piece. The early Victorian period saw the introduction of protective clot
hing.
the first Test match and the International Cricket Conference
The first Test match held in England was in 1880. In 1882 Australias victory over England at the Oval inspired a journalist to write a mock obituary notice of English cricket, in which he coined the term the Ashes. The introduction of the six-ball over in England in 1900 aided higher scoring; bowlers countered the batting dominance by the practice of swerve bowling (by fast bowlers), and the introduction in the early 1900s of the googly, a style quickly adopted around the world.
In 1909 the Imperial Cricket Conference, renamed the International Cricket Conference 1965, was set up with England, Australia and South Africa as founder members; they were later joined by the West Indies, New Zealand, India, and Pakistan.A game played with a ball and bat by two teams of 11 players; teams take turns trying to score runs.
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