Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field, at the
centre of which is a 22-yard (20-metre; 66-foot) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising
two bails (small sticks) balanced on three stumps. Two players from the batting team, the striker
and nonstriker, stand in front of either wicket holding bats, while one player from the fielding
team, the bowler, bowls the ball toward the striker's wicket from the opposite end of the pitch.
The striker's goal is to hit the bowled ball with the bat and then switch places with the nonstriker,
with the batting team scoring one run for each of these exchanges. Runs are also scored when
the ball reaches the boundary of the field or when the ball is bowled illegally.

The fielding team aims to prevent runs by dismissing batters (so they are "out"). Dismissal can
occur in various ways, including being bowled (when the ball hits the striker's wicket and
dislodges the bails), and by the fielding side either catching the ball after it is hit by the bat but
before it hits the ground, or hitting a wicket with the ball before a batter can cross the crease line
in front of the wicket. When ten batters have been dismissed, the innings (playing phase) ends
and the teams swap roles. Forms of cricket range from traditional Test matches played over five
days to the newer Twenty20 format (also known as T20), in which each team bats for a single
innings of 20 overs (each "over" being a set of 6 fair opportunities for the batting team to score)
and the game generally lasts three to four hours.

Traditionally, cricketers play in all-white kit, but in limited overs cricket, they wear club or team
colours. In addition to the basic kit, some players wear protective gear to prevent injury caused
by the ball, which is a hard, solid spheroid made of compressed leather with a slightly raised
sewn seam enclosing a cork core layered with tightly wound string.

The earliest known definite reference to cricket is to it being played in South East England in the
mid-16th century. It spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, with the first
international matches in the second half of the 19th century. The game's governing body is the
International Cricket Council (ICC), which has over 100 members, twelve of which are full
members who play Test matches. The game's rules, the Laws of Cricket, are maintained by
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in London. The sport is followed primarily in South Asia,
Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Southern Africa, and the West Indies.[2]

While traditionally, cricket has largely been played by men, Women's cricket has experienced
large growth in the 21st century.[3]

The most successful side playing international cricket is Australia, which has won eight One Day
International trophies, including six World Cups, more than any other country, and has been the
top-rated Test side more than any other country.[4][5]
History Cricket

Origins

Shaun Pollock of South Africa bowls to

Michael Hussey of Australia during the 2005
Boxing Day Test match at the Melbourne
Cricket Ground.

Highest International Cricket

governing body Council

Nicknames The Gentlemen's

A medieval "club ball" game involving Game[1]
an underarm bowl towards a batter.
Ball catchers are shown positioning First played 16th century; South
themselves to catch a ball. Detail East England
from the Canticles of Holy Mary, 13th
Characteristics
century.

Cricket is one of many games in the "club ball" Contact No

sphere that involve hitting a ball with a hand- Team members 11 players per side
held implement. Others include baseball (substitutes
permitted in some
(which shares many similarities with cricket, circumstances)
both belonging in the more specific bat-and-
Mixed-sex No, separate
ball games category[6]), golf, hockey, tennis, competitions
squash, badminton and table tennis.[7] In
Type Team sport, Bat-and-
cricket's case, a key difference is the existence Ball
of a solid target structure, the wicket
Equipment Cricket ball, Cricket
(originally, it is thought, a "wicket gate" through bat, Wicket (Stumps,
which sheep were herded), that the batter Bails), Protective
equipment
must defend.[8] The cricket historian Harry
Altham identified three "groups" of "club ball" Venue Cricket field

games: the "hockey group", in which the ball is Glossary Glossary of cricket
driven to and from between two targets (the terms

goals); the "golf group", in which the ball is Presence

driven towards an undefended target (the
Country or region Worldwide (most
hole); and the "cricket group", in which "the ball popular in the
is aimed at a mark (the wicket) and driven Commonwealth)
away from it".[9] Olympic 1900, 2028
It is generally believed that cricket originated as a children's game in the south-eastern counties
of England, sometime during the medieval period.[8] Although there are claims for prior dates, the
earliest definite reference to cricket being played comes from evidence given at a court case in
Guildford in January 1597 (Old Style, equating to January 1598 in the modern calendar). The
case concerned ownership of a certain plot of land, and the court heard the testimony of a 59-
year-old coroner, John Derrick, who gave witness that:[10][11][12]

Being a scholler in the ffree schoole of Guldeford hee and diverse of his
fellows did runne and play there at creckett and other plaies.

Given Derrick's age, it was about half a century earlier when he was at school, and so it is certain
that cricket was being played c. 1550 by boys in Surrey.[12] The view that it was originally a
children's game is reinforced by Randle Cotgrave's 1611 English-French dictionary in which he
defined the noun "crosse " as "the crooked staff wherewith boys play at cricket", and the verb
form "crosser " as "to play at cricket".[13][14]

One possible source for the sport's name is the Old English word "cryce " (or "cricc ") meaning a
crutch or staff. In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick".[10]
In Old French, the word "criquet " seems to have meant a kind of club or stick.[15] Given the strong
medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the
latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle
Dutch (in use in Flanders at the time) "krick "(-e), meaning a stick (crook).[15] Another possible
source is the Middle Dutch word "krickstoel ", meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in
church that resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket.[16] According to
Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the
Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, "met de (krik ket)sen" ("with the stick chase").[17] Gillmeister has
suggested that not only the name but also the sport itself may be of Flemish origin.[17]