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Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a cricket field,
at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket at each end.
One team bats, attempting to score as many runs as possible, whilst their opponents field.
Each phase of play is called an innings. After either ten batsmen have been dismissed
or a fixed number of overs have been completed, the innings ends
and the two teams then swap roles. The winning team is the one that scores the most runs,
including any extras gained, during their innings. At the start of each game, two batsmen
and eleven fielders enter the field of play. The play begins when a member of the fielding team,
known as the bowler, delivers the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, towards the wicket
at that end, in front of which stands one of the batsmen, known as the striker. The striker
"takes guard" on a crease drawn on the pitch four feet in front of the wicket. His role is
to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps by use of his bat, and simultaneously
to strike it well enough to score runs. The other batsman, known as the non-striker, waits
at the opposite end of the pitch near the bowler. A dismissed batsman must leave the field,
and a teammate replaces him. The bowler's objectives are to prevent the scoring of runs and
to dismiss the batsman. An over is a set of six deliveries bowled by the same bowler. The next
over is bowled from the other end of the pitch by a different bowler.
The most common forms of dismissal are bowled, when the bowler hits the stumps directly
with the ball; leg before wicket, when the batsman prevents the ball from hitting the stumps
with his body instead of his bat; and caught, when the batsman hits the ball into the air
and it is intercepted by a fielder before touching the ground. Runs are scored
by two main methods: either by hitting the ball hard enough for it to cross the boundary, or
by the two batsmen swapping ends
by each simultaneously running the length of the pitch in opposite directions whilst the fielders
are retrieving the ball. If a fielder retrieves the ball quickly enough to put down the wicket
with a batsman not having reached the crease at that end of the pitch,
that batsman is dismissed. Adjudication is performed on the field by two umpires.
The laws of cricket are maintained by the International Cricket Council
and the Marylebone Cricket Club. There are various formats ranging from Twenty20, played
over a few hours with each team having a single innings of 20 overs, to Test cricket, played
over five days with unlimited overs and the teams playing two innings apiece.
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 object made of compressed leather enclosing a cork core.
Although cricket's origins are uncertain,
it is first recorded in south-east England in the 16th century. It spread globally
with the expansion of the British Empire, leading
to the first international matches in the mid-19th century. ICC, the game's governing body, has
over 100 members, ten of which are full members who play Test cricket.
The sport is followed primarily in Australasia, Britain, the Indian subcontinent, southern Africa
and the West Indies. Women's cricket, which is organised and played separately,
has also achieved international standard.
Etymology
A number of words have been suggested as sources for the term cricket.
In the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598 it is called creckett. One possible source
for the name is the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff.
In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick". In Old French,
the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick.
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 krick, meaning a stick.
Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used
for kneeling in church and which resembled the long low wicket
with two stumps used in early cricket. According to Heiner Gillmeister,
a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase
for hockey, met de sen. Gillmeister believes that not only the name,
but the sport itself is of Flemish origin.
History
Cricket can definitely be traced back
to Tudor times in early 16th-century England though there have been a number of claims,
many of them spurious and/or lacking evidence, supporting earlier dates from 1301.
The earliest definite reference to cricket being played comes from evidence given
at a 1598 court case which mentions that "creckett"
was played on common land in Guildford around 1550. The court in Guildford heard on Monday,
17 January 1597 from a 59-year-old coroner, John Derrick, who gave witness that
when he was a scholar at the "Free School at Guildford", fifty years earlier, "hee
and diverse of his fellows did runne and play [on the common land] at creckett
and other plaies."  [^]  It is believed that cricket was originally a children's game,
but references in 1611 indicate that adults had started playing it
and the earliest known organised inter-parish
or village cricket match was played around that time. In 1624,
a player called Jasper Vinall died after he was struck on the head
during a match between two parish teams in Sussex. During the 17th century,
numerous references indicate the growth of cricket in the south-east of England.
By the end of the century, it had become an organised activity being played for high stakes
and it is believed that the first professionals appeared in the years following the Restoration in
1660. A newspaper report survives of "a great cricket match"
with eleven players a side that was played for high stakes in Sussex in 1697,
and this is the earliest known reference to a cricket match of such importance.
The game underwent major development in the 18th century.
Betting played a key part in that development with rich patrons forming their own "select XIs".
Cricket was prominent in London as early as 1707 and, in the middle years of the century,
large crowds flocked to matches on the Artillery Ground in Finsbury.
The single wicket form of the sport attracted huge crowds and wagers to match,
its popularity peaking in the 1748 season. Bowling underwent an evolution around 1760
when bowlers began to pitch the ball instead of rolling or skimming it towards the batsman.
This caused a revolution in bat design because, to deal with the bouncing ball, it was necessary
to introduce the modern straight bat in place of the old "hockey stick" shape.
The Hambledon Club was founded in the 1760s and,
for the next twenty years until the formation of Marylebone Cricket Club
and the opening of Lord's Old Ground in 1787, Hambledon was both the game's greatest club
and its focal point. MCC quickly became the sport's premier club
and the custodian of the Laws of cricket.
New Laws introduced in the latter part of the 18th century included the three stump wicket
and leg before wicket.  [^]  The 19th century saw underarm bowling superseded by first roundarm
and then overarm bowling. Both developments were controversial. Organisation of the game
at county level led to the creation of the county clubs, starting with Sussex in 1839,
which ultimately formed the official County Championship in 1890. Meanwhile,
the British Empire had been instrumental in spreading the game overseas and
by the middle of the 19th century it had become well established in India, North America,
the Caribbean, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In 1844,
the first-ever international match took place between the United States and Canada. In 1859,
a team of English players went to North America on the first overseas tour.
The first Australian team to tour overseas was a team of Aboriginal stockmen who travelled
to England in 1868 to play matches against county teams. In 1862,
an English team made the first tour of Australia.
The most famous player of the 19th century was W. G. Grace, who started his long
and influential career in 1865.  [-]  In 1876–77,
an England team took part in what was retrospectively recognised as the first-ever Test match
at the Melbourne Cricket Ground against Australia. The rivalry between England
and Australia gave birth to The Ashes in 1882
and this has remained Test cricket's most famous contest. Test cricket began to expand in 1888–89
when South Africa played England.
The last two decades before the First World War have been called the "Golden Age of cricket".
It is a nostalgic name prompted by the collective sense of loss resulting from the war,
but the period did produce some great players and memorable matches,
especially as organised competition at county and Test level developed.
The inter-war years were dominated by one player: Australia's Don Bradman,
statistically the greatest batsman of all time. Test cricket continued to expand
during the 20th century with the addition of the West Indies, India
and New Zealand before the Second World War and then Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe
and Bangladesh in the post-war period. South Africa was banned from international cricket
from 1970 to 1992 as part of the apartheid boycott. Cricket entered a new era in 1963
when English counties introduced the limited overs variant. As it was sure to produce a result,
limited overs cricket was lucrative and the number of matches increased.
The first Limited Overs International was played in 1971.
The governing International Cricket Council saw its potential
and staged the first limited overs Cricket World Cup in 1975. In the 21st century,
a new limited overs form, Twenty20, has made an immediate impact.
While some English team games like hockey and football became international games, played all
over the world, cricket remained a colonial game, limited
to those countries that had once been a part of the British empire.
The pre-industrial oddness of cricket made it a hard game to export.
It took root only in countries that the British conquered and ruled.
In these colonies cricket was established as a popular sport either by white settlers or
by local elites who wanted to copy the habits of their colonial masters, as in India.
Rules and game-play
Cricket is a bat and ball game, played between two teams of eleven players each.
One team bats, attempting to score runs, while the other bowls and fields the ball, attempting
to restrict the scoring and dismiss the batsmen. The objective of the game is for a team
to score more runs than its opponent. In some forms of cricket, it is also necessary
to dismiss the opposition in order to win the match, which would otherwise be drawn.
Playing surface
 [^]  Cricket is played on a grassy field. The Laws of Cricket do not specify the size
or shape of the field, but it is often oval. In the centre of the field is a rectangular strip,
known as the pitch. The pitch is a flat surface wide, with very short grass that tends
to be worn away as the game progresses. At either end of the pitch, apart,
are placed wooden targets, known as the wickets. These serve as a target for the bowling side
and are defended by the batting side, which seeks to accumulate runs.
Stumps, bails and creases
 [^]  Each wicket on the pitch consists of three wooden stumps placed vertically, in line
with one another. They are surmounted by two wooden crosspieces called bails;
the total height of the wicket including bails is and the combined width of the three stumps,
including small gaps between them is. Four lines, known as 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. These are called the "popping" crease,
the bowling crease and two "return" creases.
The stumps are placed in line on the bowling creases and so these creases must be apart.
A bowling crease is long, with the middle stump placed dead centre.
The popping crease has the same length, is parallel to the bowling crease
and is in front of the wicket. The return creases are perpendicular to the other two;
they are adjoined to the ends of the popping crease
and are drawn through the ends of the bowling crease to a length of at least.
When bowling the ball, the bowler's back foot in his "delivery stride"
must land within the two return creases while at least some part of his front foot must land on
or behind the popping crease. If the bowler breaks this rule, the umpire calls "No ball".
The importance of the popping crease
to the batsman is that it marks the limit of his safe territory. He can be dismissed stumped
or run out if the wicket is broken while he is "out of his ground".
Bat and ball
The essence of the sport is that 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 bat is made of wood and has the shape of a blade topped
by a cylindrical handle. The blade must not be more than wide
and the total length of the bat not more than. The ball is a hard leather-seamed spheroid,
with a circumference of. The hardness of the ball, which can be delivered at speeds of more
than, is a matter for concern and batsmen wear protective clothing including pads,
batting gloves for the hands, a helmet for the head and a box inside the trousers.
Some batsmen wear additional padding inside their shirts and trousers such as thigh pads,
arm pads, rib protectors and shoulder pads. The ball has a
"seam": six rows of stitches attaching the leather shell of the ball to the string
and cork interior. The seam on a new ball is prominent,
and helps the bowler propel it in a less predictable manner. During cricket matches,
the quality of the ball deteriorates to a point where it is no longer usable, and
during the course of this deterioration its behaviour in flight will change
and thus influence the match. Players will therefore attempt to modify the ball's behaviour
by modifying its physical properties. Polishing the ball and wetting it with sweat
or saliva is legal, even when the polishing is deliberately done on one side only
to increase the ball's swing, while rubbing other substances into the ball, scratching the surface
or picking at the seam is illegal ball tampering.
Umpires and scorers
 [^]  The game on the field 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", a position 15–20 metres
to the side of the "on strike" batsman. The main role of the umpires is
to adjudicate on whether a ball is correctly bowled, when a run is scored,
and whether a batsman is out. Umpires also determine when intervals start and end,
decide on the suitability of the playing conditions and can interrupt or even abandon the match due
to circumstances likely to endanger the players, such as a damp pitch
or deterioration of the light. Off the field and in televised matches,
there is often a third umpire who can make decisions on certain incidents
with the aid of video evidence. The third umpire is mandatory under the playing conditions
for Test matches and limited overs internationals played between two ICC full members.
These matches also have a match referee whose job is
to ensure that play is within the Laws of cricket and the spirit of the game. The match details,
including runs and dismissals, are recorded by two official scorers, one representing each team.
The scorers are directed by the hand signals of an umpire. For example,
the umpire raises a forefinger to signal that the batsman is out ;
he raises both arms above his head if the batsman has hit the ball for six runs.
The scorers are required by the Laws of cricket to record all runs scored, wickets taken
and overs bowled; in practice, they also note significant amounts of additional data relating
to the game.
Team structure
A team consists of eleven players. Depending on his or her primary skills,
a player may be classified as a specialist batsman or bowler. A well-balanced team usually has five
or six specialist batsmen and four or five specialist bowlers.
Teams nearly always include a specialist wicket-keeper,
because of the importance of this fielding position. Each team is headed
by a captain who is responsible
for making tactical decisions such as determining the batting order, the placement of fielders
and the rotation of bowlers. A player who excels in both batting
and bowling is known as an all-rounder. One who excels as a batsman
and wicket-keeper is known as a "wicket-keeper/batsman",
sometimes regarded as a type of all-rounder.
True all-rounders are rare as most players focus on either batting or bowling skills.
Bowling
 [^]  The bowler reaches his delivery stride by means of a "run-up", although some bowlers
with a very slow delivery take no more than a couple of steps before bowling.
A fast bowler needs momentum and takes quite a long run-up, running very fast as he does so.
The fastest bowlers can deliver the ball at a speed of over
and they sometimes rely on sheer speed to try and defeat the batsman, who is forced
to react very quickly. Other fast bowlers rely on a mixture of speed and guile.
Some fast bowlers make use of the seam of the ball so that it "curves" or "swings" in flight.
This type of delivery can deceive a batsman into mistiming his shot so that the ball just touches
the edge of the bat and can then be "caught behind" by the wicketkeeper or a slip fielder.
At the other end of the bowling scale is the "spinner" who bowls at a relatively slow pace
and relies entirely on guile to deceive the batsman. A spinner will often "buy his wicket" by
"tossing one up" to lure the batsman into making a poor shot. The batsman has
to be very wary of such deliveries as they are often "flighted"
or spun so that the ball will not behave quite as he expects and he could be "trapped"
into getting himself out. In between the pacemen and the spinners are the "medium pacers"
who rely on persistent accuracy to try and contain the rate of scoring
and wear down the batsman's concentration. All bowlers are classified according to their looks
or style. The classifications, as with much cricket terminology, can be very confusing. Hence,
a bowler could be classified as LF, meaning he is a left arm fast bowler; or as LBG,
meaning he is a right arm spin bowler who bowls deliveries that are called a "leg break" and a
"Googly". During the bowling action the elbow may be held at any angle and may bend further,
but may not straighten out.
If the elbow straightens illegally then the square-leg umpire may call no-ball: this is known as
"throwing" or "chucking", and can be difficult to detect. The current laws allow a bowler
to straighten his arm 15 degrees or less.
Fielding
 [^]  All eleven players on the fielding side take the field together.
One of them is the wicket-keeper who operates behind the wicket being defended
by the batsman on strike. Wicket-keeping is normally a specialist occupation
and his primary job is to gather deliveries that the batsman does not hit,
so that the batsmen cannot run byes. He wears special gloves, a box over the groin, and pads
to cover his lower legs. He is the only player who can get a batsman out stumped. Apart
from the one currently bowling, the other nine fielders are tactically deployed
by the team captain in chosen positions around the field.
The captain is the most important member of the fielding side as he determines all the tactics
including who should bowl ; and he is responsible for "setting the field",
though usually in consultation with the bowler. In all forms of cricket, if a fielder is injured
or becomes ill during a match, a substitute is allowed to field instead of him.
The substitute cannot bowl, act as a captain or keep wicket. The substitute leaves the field
when the injured player is fit to return.
Batting
 [^]  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. Batsmen come in
to bat in a batting order, decided by the team captain usually after consulting the team coach,
though the captain is not bound to consult the coach. The first two batsmenthe
"openers"usually face the hostile bowling from fresh fast bowlers with a new ball.
The top batting positions are usually given to the most competent batsmen in the team,
and the team's bowlerswho are typically, but not always,
less skilled as batsmentypically bat last. The pre-announced batting order is not mandatory;
when a wicket falls any player who has not yet batted may be sent in next. If a batsman
"retires" 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.
A skilled batsman can use a wide array of "shots" or "strokes" in both defensive
and attacking mode. The idea is to hit the ball to best effect
with the flat surface of the bat's blade. If the ball touches the side of the bat it is called an
"edge". Batsmen do not always seek to hit the ball as hard as possible,
and a good player can score runs just by making a deft stroke with a turn of the wrists or
by simply "blocking" the ball, but directing it away from fielders so that he has time
to take a run.  [^]  There is a wide variety of shots played in cricket.
The batsman's repertoire includes strokes named according to the style of swing
and the direction aimed: and more, "cut", "drive", "hook", "pull". A batsman is not required
to play a shot; in the event that he believes the ball will not hit his wicket
and there is no opportunity to score runs, he can "leave" the ball to go through
to the wicketkeeper. Equally, he does not have to attempt a run when he hits the ball
with his bat. He can deliberately use his leg to block the ball and thereby "pad it away",
but this is risky, because of the leg before wicket rule.
In the event of an injured batsman being fit to bat, but not to run, the umpires
and the fielding captain could previously allow another member of the batting side
to be a runner. The runner's only task was
to run between the wickets instead of the incapacitated batsman, and he was required to wear
and carry exactly the same equipment as the batsman.
As of 2011 the ICC outlawed the use of runners as they felt this was being abused.
Runs
 [^]  The batsman on strike must prevent the ball hitting the wicket, and try 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.
To register a run, both runners must touch the ground behind the crease with either their bats
or their bodies. Each completed run increments the score. More than one run can be scored
from a single hit: hits worth one to three runs are common,
but 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 automatically awarded four runs if the ball touches
the ground en route to the boundary
or six runs if the ball clears the boundary without touching the ground within the boundary.
In these cases the batsmen do not need to run.  [^]  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. The decision to attempt a run is ideally made
by the batsman who has the better view of the ball's progress, and this is communicated by calling:
"yes", "no" and "wait" are often heard. Running is a calculated risk,
because if a fielder breaks the wicket
with the ball while the nearest batsman is out of his ground, the batsman is run out.
A team's score is reported in terms of the number of runs scored
and the number of batsmen that have been dismissed. For example, if five batsmen are out
and the team has scored 224 runs, they are said to have scored 224 for the loss of 5 wickets.
Extras
Additional runs can be gained by the batting team as extras due to errors made
by the fielding side. This is achieved in four ways: When the bowler has bowled a no ball
or a wide, his team incurs an additional penalty, because that ball has to be bowled again
and hence the batting side has the opportunity to score more runs from this extra ball.
The batsmen have to run to claim byes and leg byes, but these only count towards the team total,
not to the striker's individual total for which runs must be scored off the bat.
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