HISTORY

OF
CRICKET
BY-

MUKUL
I X- A
17

WHAT IS CRICKET???

Cricket grew out of many stick-and-ball

games played in England 500 years ago,
under a variety of different rules.

The word bat is an old English word that

simply means stick or club.

By the seventeenth century, cricket had

evolved enough to be recognizable as a
distinct game and it was very popular.

The game was expected to represent all that

English valued- fair play, discipline and
gentlemanliness.

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF

CRICKET???

Earlier cricket used to thrive greatly as a gambling game.

People used to place huge amounts of bets in matches and
thus the game started to get recognition. Cricket was in fact
a major gambling sport towards the end of the 17th
century .

By the 17th century the game was quite popular as a rough

rural pastime, but in the following century the leisure classes
took up the sport, particularly in Sussex, Kent, and London.
In the year 1787, the Marylebone Cricket Club also known
MCC was created. The MCC has since then gone on to
become one of the most prominent bodies in world cricket .
Late18th century was a very crucial phase for the
development of the game, both within and outside Britain.
The game was spread far and wide mainly due to Englands

ABOUT CRICKET

Cricket was the earliest modern team sport to be codified. The first written Law of
Cricket were drawn up in 1744.

They stated

The principals shall choose from amongst the gentlemen present two umpires who shall
absolutely decide all disputes.

The stumps must be 22 inches high and the bail across them 6 inches. The ball must be
between 5 and 6 ounces, and the two sets of stumps 22 yards apart.

The worlds first cricket club was formed in Hambledon in the 1760s and the Marylebone
Cricket Club (MCC) was founded in 1787.

The Parsi team was also one of the well known olden teams.

During the 1760s and 1770s it became common to pitch the ball through the air rather
than roll it along the ground. This change gave bowlers the option of length, deception
through the air, plus increased pace. It also opened new possibilities for spin and swing.
In response, batsmen had to master timing and shot selection.

One immediate result was the replacement of curved bat with the straight one.

The weight of the ball was limited to between 5 to 5 , and the width of the bat to 4
inches.

IN 1774, the first leg-before law was published.

Also this time, a third stump became common.

By 1780, three days had become the length of a major match, and this year also saw the
creation of the first six-seam cricket ball.

PECULIARITY & TOOLS OF CRICKET

A test match can go on for five days and still end in a draw. No other
team sport takes even half as much time to complete.
A curious characteristic of cricket is that the length of the pitch is
specified-22yards-but the size or shape of the ground is not.

Crickets most important tools are all made of natural, pre-industrial

materials. The bat is made with leather, twine and cork. Even today
both bat and ball are handmade, not industrially manufactured. The
material of the bat changed slightly over time. Once it was cut out
of a single piece of wood. Now it consists of two pieces, the blade
which is made out of the wood of the willow tree and the handle
which is made out of cane.

Unlike golf and tennis, cricket has refused to remake its tools with
industrial or man-made materials: plastic, fiberglass and metal
have been firmly rejected.

The invention of vulcanized rubber led to the introduction of pads in

1848 and protective gloves soon afterwards, and the modern game
would be unimaginable without helmets made out of metal and
synthetic lightweight materials.

ORIGINS OF INDIAN CRICKET

The origins of Indian cricket, that is, cricket played by

Indians are to be found in Bombay and the first
Indian community to start playing the game was the
small community of Zoroastrians, the Parsis.

Brought into close contact with the British because of

their interest in trade and the first Indian community
to westernise, the Parsis founded the first Indian
cricket club, the Oriental Cricket Club in Bombay in
1848. Parsi clubs were funded and sponsored by
Parsi businessmen like the Tatas and the Wadias

QUAREL BETWEEN THE PARSIS AND

THE BOMBAY GYMKHANA

The white cricket elite in India offered no help to the enthusiastic

Parsis. In fact, there was quarrel between the Bombay Gymkhana,
a whites only club, and Parsi cricketers over the use of public
park. The Parsis complained that the park was left unfit for cricket
because the polo ponies of the Bombay Gymkhana dug up the
surface.

When it became clear that the colonial authorities were prejudiced

in favour of their white compatriots, the Parsis built there own
gymkhana to play cricket in. The rivalry between the Parsis and
the Bombay Gymkhana had a happy ending for these pioneers of
Indian cricket. A Parsi team beat the Bombay Gymkhana at cricket
in 1889, just 4 years after the foundation of the Indian National
Congress in 1885,an organisation that was lucky to have amongst
its early leaders the great Parsi statesman and intellectual
Dadabhai Naoroji.

Growth of Test Cricket

Test cricket remained the sport's highest

level of standard throughout the 20th
century but it had its problems, notably
in the infamous Bodyline Series" of
193233 when Douglas Jardines England
used so-called "leg theory" to try and
neutralise the run-scoring brilliance of
Australia's Donald Bradman.

When the Imperial Cricket Conference

(as it was originally called) was founded
in 1909, only England, Australia and
South Africa were members. India, West
indies and New Zealand became Test
nations before the Second World War
and Pakistan soon afterwards. The
international game grew with several
"affiliate nations" getting involved and,
in the closing years of the 20th century,
three of those became Test nations
also:
Sri
Lanka,
Zimbabwe
and
Bangladesh.

MODERN CRICKET

Modern cricket is dominated by Tests and Oneday internationals, played between national
teams. The players who become famous, who
live on in the memories of crickets public, are
those who have played for their country.

The players, Indian fans remember even now

are those who were fortunate enough to play
Test cricket.
C.K. Nayudu, an outstanding Indian batsman
of his time.
Palwankar Baloo, the greatest slow bowler of
his time.

Sir Donald Bradman, the best ever batsman

in the history of cricket.

Limited-overs cricket
In the 1960s, English county teams began
playing a version of cricket with games of
only one innings each and a maximum
number of overs per innings. Starting in
1963 as a knockout competition only,
limited overs grew in popularity and in 1969
a national league was created which
consequently caused a reduction in the
number of matches in the County
Championship.
Although many "traditional" cricket
fans objected to the shorter form of the
game, limited overs cricket did have
the advantage of delivering a result to
spectators within a single day; it did
improve cricket's appeal to younger or
busier people; and it did prove
commercially successful.