The Gentleman’s Game…Cricket

Index• About Cricket

• History

• Spread of Cricket• Cricket, Race and Religion

• Modernization of Cricket

• Facts!

About CricketThe game of cricket has a known history spanning from

the 16th century to the present day, with international matches played since 1844, although the official history of international Test cricket began in 1877. During this time, the game developed from its origins in England into a game which is now played professionally in most of theCommonwealth of Nations

HistoryCricket 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 it became popular as a district game.

Till the eighteenth century, bats were roughly the shape of an hockey stick, curving outwards at the bottom. There was a simple reason of this: the bowl was bowled underarm, along the ground and the curve at the end of the bat gave the batsman the best chance in making a contact.

Spread Of CricketWhile some English team games like hockey and football

became international games, played all over the world, cricket remained a colonial game, limited to countries that have once been a part of pat of British empire. The pre-industrial oddness of cricket made it a hard game to export. While the British official brought the game to colonies, they made little effort to spread the game, especially in colonial territories where the subjects of the empire were mainly non-white, such as India and the west indies.

Cricket, Race And Religion

Cricket in colonial India was organized on the principle of race and religion. The record we have of cricket being played in India is from1721, an account of recreational cricket played by English sailors in Camay. The first Indian club, the Calcutta Cricket Club, was established in 1792. through the eighteenth century, cricket in India was almost a wholly sport played by British military men and civil men in all-white clubs and gymkhanas. Playing cricket in privacy of these cricket clubs was more than just fun: it was also escape from strangeness, discomfort and danger of their stay in India.

Modernization Of CricketIn recent times, technology powerhouse YouTube, partnered with the

Indian Premier League to live stream the 2010 IPL series via YouTube. While the IPL series was predominantly broadcast via television, the live stream footage reached 50 million views globally across 200 plus countries. The biggest viewer population was unsurprisingly India. However the United States were surprisingly the second largest audience, a country not known to give much attention to cricket. With the advance of technology, the media have also changed how the game is televised, introducing new ways for the viewer to see the game including video replays, Stump Cam, HawkEye, video umpire and also infrared HotSpot to see where the ball hit the bat.

Continued…The International Cricket Hall of Fame is presently installing

a Stump Cam in the Kids Backyard. Check back soon for an update. At any major cricket match today, you’ll find a wide array of media and their production teams broadcasting, interviewing and providing ongoing news and commentary to the cricket masses.

Facts!• Cricket is the second most popular sport in the

world and is played in over 130 countries.• Pakistani magician spinner, Saeed Ajmal

surprisingly has never won a single award for the ‘Man of the Match’ in ODIs.

• Neither Mahendra Singh Dhoni nor Suresh Raina has ever scored an ODI century outside Asia.

• In all of 400 years history of Cricket, the fastest speed for a cricket ball bowled by any bowler, ever, is precisely 161.3 km/h (100.23 mph) by Shoaib Akhtar of Pakistan Ishant Sharma is responsible for all the three highest scores made by a batsman against India in the 21st century.

• In a World Cup Match, chasing 335, Sunil Gavaskar scored an unbeaten 36 off 174 balls.

• The player with the most number of not outs in Test cricket is not Rahul Dravid, but Courtney Walsh.