History of cricket
The sport of cricket has a long and rich history.
Origins
The precise origins of cricket, and even of its name, remain unclear. Some manuscripts from the 12th and 13th centuries show diagrams of early forms of cricket. Written evidence exists for a sport known as creag being played by Prince Edward, the son of King Edward I, in England in around 1300.
A number of words are thought to be possible sources for the term cricket, which could refer to the bat or the wicket. In old French, the word criquet meant a kind of club which probably gave its name to croquet. Some believe that cricket and croquet have a common origin. In Flemish, krick(e) means a stick, and, in old English, cricc or cryce means a crutch or staff.
Alternatively, the French criquet apparently comes from the Flemish word krickstoel, which is a long low stool on which one kneels in church which may appear similar to the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket, or the early stool in stoolball. The word stool is old Sussex dialect for a tree stump, and stool ball is a sport similar to cricket played by the Dutch.
In certain periods, early forms of cricket were banned in England. For example, a statute of King Edward IV in 1477–8 (17 Edw. IV. c. 3) made the playing of Hands in and hands out illegal because it interfered with the compulsory practice of archery.
Later, Oliver Cromwell banned cricket. Cricket was played illegally until 1748, when the Court of Kings Bench decided that cricket was a legal sport and not an illegal game under a 1710 statute of Queen Anne, 9 Anne, c. 19. Cricket similar to its modern organised form began soon thereafter.
Codification of rules
On September 23, 1741, Shock White of Ryegate used a bat fully as wide as a wicket against the Hambledon Club. This prompted the Hambledon Club to record a minute to the effect that the maximum width of a cricket bat be set at four and a quarter inches. Other clubs quickly adopted this standard, using metal gauges to check the size of bats before allowing their use.
The first recorded codification of the rules of cricket is the Code of 1744. This specified that:
- the pitch be 22 yards long,
- the distance between the bowling crease and popping crease be 46 inches,
- the wicket be 22 inches tall and 6 inches wide,
- and the ball weigh between 5 and 6 ounces.
In 1821, the distance between the bowling and popping creases was increased form 46 to 48 inches. On May 10, 1838, the size of a cricket ball was codified for the first time, being a circumference between 9 and 9 1/4 inches.
By 1853, the cricket bat had been developed into roughly its modern form, being carved from a single piece of willow and attached to a cane handle.
In 1864, overam bowling was allowed for the first time. Prior to this, only underarm bowling had been legal.
In 1865, creases were painted with whitewash for the first time. Prior to this, the creases were cut into the turf, forming small ditches an inch in width and depth.
Test match cricket
The first ever cricket game played between teams representing their nations was between the USA and Canada in 1844. The match was played at Elysian Field in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Meanwhile, in England, county cricket was growing in popularity. In the 1870s, the MCC decided that the next step was to establish international relations with the British colonies, where cricket was becoming more popular as well.
In 1877 James Lillywhite put together a team and set off by ship for a tour of Australia. His team, representing England on foreign soil, played the first Test match against Australia on March 15, 1877, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Australia won by 45 runs.
On a tour of England in 1882, Australia narrowly beat England by 7 runs in a tense and exciting match, which prompted the Sporting Times to run an obituary lamenting "The Death of English Cricket", with the footnote "N.B. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia". The following Australian summer, England played a series in Australia which the media played up as a quest to "regain the ashes". A small trophy was created, containing some ashes, and presented to the English captain. Except in times of war, regular series of Test matches between these two countries have continued until this day, playing for the right to hold the Ashes.
On March 12, 1888, England played South Africa for the first time in a Test match. The match occurred at St. George's Park, Port Elizabeth, South Africa and established South Africa as the third Test nation.
Pre-war era
In 1912, a "Triangular Tournament" was organized in England, involving South Africa, Australia, and the host nation. It was the first Test series in which more than two countries took part. An utter disaster, the scheme has never been repeated until the recent Asia Test Championship between India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
International cricket was suspended for the duration of World War I, although domestic first-class cricket seasons were still played.
Between the wars
Between the World Wars, three new teams acquired Test status. On June 23, 1928, the West Indies played England at Lord's Cricket Ground in London. Then, England played against New Zealand in Lancaster Park, Christchurch, New Zealand on January 10, 1930. Finally, England matched up against one of its own colonies, India, on June 23, 1932, at Lord's.
One of the most controversial and antagonistic episodes in cricket history occurred during the 1932–33 tour of Australia by England. The so-called Bodyline tour saw England adopt the deliberate tactic of bowling fast, short-pitched balls at the bodies of the Australian batsmen, with the goal of intimidating them into losing their wickets. After this tour, the Laws of Cricket were changed to prevent any reccurrence of such tactics.
With the outbreak of World War II, international cricket was again suspended until after the war.
Post-war era
After India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947, the Pakistani cricket team played their first Test against their Indian counterparts at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi, India, on October 16, 1952. This was the first inaugural Test in which England did not play. No new Test teams were to be seen until the 1980s.
Suspension of South Africa
In 1970, the other member nations of the International Cricket Council voted to suspend indefinitely South Africa from international cricket competition, because of its government's discriminatory policy of apartheid. South Africa had played its last Test against Australia on March 5 to March 10, 1970, at Port Elizabeth.
The suspension resulted in the Test careers of several fine players being cut short, most notably Barry Richards and Graham Pollock. South Africa continued playing domestic cricket within the country, and its players remained strong. In 1974, the South African Cricket Board of Control applied for re-admission to international cricket, and was refused by the ICC.
Starved of top-level competition for its best players, the board began funding so-called rebel tours, offering large sums of money for international players to form teams and tour South Africa. The ICC's response was to blacklist any rebel players who agreed to tour South Africa, banning them from officially sanctioned international cricket. As players were remunerated poorly during the 1970s, several accepted the offer to tour South Africa, particularly players towards the end of their careers, where a blacklisting would have little effect.
The rebel tours were widely condemned by the cricket establishement as offering support and succour to South Africa's apartheid regime, and some members of the press supported this view. Others claimed that the old maxim that "sport and politics do not mix" applied and saw no harm in having a sporting contest with citizens of an oppressive government.
Rebel tours continued into the 1980s, including a high profile English team led by Graham Gooch.
One-day matches and the World Cup
In the 1960s, English county teams began playing a version of cricket with modified rules. Instead of allowing each team two innings and requiring the team to be dismissed in each one, they set up games of only one innings each, and decreed that the innings would be completed when a maximum number of overs had been bowled.
This change to the rules allowed a game to be completed within one day. This did not supplant the traditional long format of the game, which continued to be played. Indeed, many cricket fans considered the shorter form of the game to be a corruption of the sport. One-day cricket did however have the advantage of delivering a result to spectators within a single day, thus improving cricket's appeal to younger or busier people.
The first one-day international match took place in Melbourne in 1971, as a time-filler after a Test match had been abandoned because of heavy rain on the opening days. It was tried simply as an experiment and to give the players some exercise, but turned out to be immensely popular. One-day internationals have since grown to become the most popular form of the game.
One-day internationals proved so popular so quickly that the International Cricket Council organised the first Cricket World Cup in 1975, pitting all the Test nations against one another in a series of one-day games, hosted in England. The West Indies beat Australia in a thrilling final that cemented the popularity of the short form of cricket and led to World Cups being held every four years.
World Series Cricket
The cricket world underwent a major upheaval in the years 1977–1979, precipitated by a single man, Kerry Packer. The conditions of poor player working conditions and remuneration were ripe for Packer to sign some of the best players in the world to a privately run cricket league, outside the structure of international cricket.
For full details, see World Series Cricket.
World Series Cricket hired some of the banned South African players and allowed them to show off their skills in an international forum, against other world-class players. Barry Richards performed particularly impressively, and cricket fans began to realise just what they were missing out on with South Africa banned from officially sanctioned cricket.
By 1979, the schism in world cricket had been removed and the "rebel" players were allowed back into the establishment of international cricket. The fallout of World Series Cricket included the introduction of significantly higher player salaries, as well as bringing the innovations of coloured uniforms and night games into the mainstream.
Globalisation of cricket
In the late 1970s and 1980s the West Indies were universally feared and respected thanks to a fine combination of terrifying fast bowlers (such as Michael Holding, Curtly Ambrose and Malcolm Marshall) and powerful batsmen (such as Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and Gordon Greenidge).
On February 17, 1982, Sri Lanka played England in its first Test at P. Saravanamuttu Stadium, Colombo, in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka remained a relatively weak team for many years, but rose to prominence when they unexpectedly won the 1996 World Cup. This victory was built on a radical change of game strategy for one-day cricket. Up to this point, teams had tended to score slowly at the beginning of the innings in an attempt to conserve wickets and accelerate the scoring rate towards the end. Sri Lanka turned this strategy upside down, attacking aggressively from the first ball and often building unprecedentedly high scores on this foundation. Since 1996, all teams have adopted this strategy, which has revolutionised one-day internationals and led to ever-higher record totals.
Following the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, the ICC officially reinstated South Africa as a full Test nation in 1991. South Africa played its first official international game since 1970 against India on November 10, 1991—a one-day international won by India. South Africa's first Test match since being banned was against the West Indies, beginning on April 18 1992. The West Indies won by 52 runs. South Africa's cricketing skills had slipped a little during their period of isolation, but they were soon to prove they were a strong team.
On October 18, 1992, Zimbabwe played its first Test match against India at the Harare Sports Club, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Bangladesh opposed India in its first Test on 10 November, 2000. The match, which brought the total number of Test teams to ten, was played at Bangabhandhu National Stadium, Dhaka. Bangladesh's admission to Test status has been somewhat controversial, because of their extremely poor performances (losing virtually all their matches outright, a record unmatched by any team throughout Test history), and the widespread belief that Kenya is a stronger side. This belief gained some credibility following the 2003 Cricket World Cup. At that event, Bangladesh lost all its matches, while Kenya became the first non-Test nation to reach the semifinals. Even more fittingly to critics of the elevation of Bangladesh, Kenya defeated Bangladesh in the preliminary round.
Current status
Cricket remains a major world sport, second in popularity only to football (soccer). If anything, its popularity is increasing, as the ICC expands its development programs with the goal of producing more national teams capable of competing at Test level. Development efforts are focused on African and Asian nations, and the United States.
The U.S. has long been seen as a promising market for cricket, but it has been difficult to make any impression on a public largely ignorant of the sport. The establishment of the Pro Cricket professional league in the U.S. in 2004 may be the beginning of broaching this last frontier. China may also be a source of future cricket development, with the Chinese government announcing plans in 2004 to develop the sport—almost unknown in China—with the goal of qualifying for the World Cup by 2019.
Two ongoing controversies plague cricket in 2004. The first involves the status of the sport in Zimbabwe, where many people allege that administration of the game is corrupted by the influence of Robert Mugabe's government. This matter first came to prominence during the 1999 World Cup, when players Andy Flower and Henry Olonga wore black armbands in protest against "the death of democracy in Zimbabwe". Both players subsequently retired and emigrated from Zimbabwe, under intense political pressure. In 2004, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and 15 senior players were involved in a stand-off over this issue, resulting in the players resigning from Zimbabwean cricket. Following poor performances by a second-string Zimbabwean cricket team against Sri Lanka, the ZCU and ICC agreed that Zimbabwe would play no further Test matches in 2004. The matter remains unresolved.
Secondly, the ICC is conducting ongoing reviews of the interpretation of Law 24.3 of the Laws of Cricket: Definition of fair delivery – the arm, in the wake of biomechanical findings that Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan violates the guidelines for arm extension when bowling his doosra. The reporting of Muralitharan for a suspect arm action by match referee Chris Broad and the subsequent study has precipitated a crisis by finding that the current interpretive guidelines may be inadequate and ultimately unenforcable. What this means for the Laws of Cricket remains to be seen.
As of June 2004, the strongest team in the world according to the official rankings is Australia, with South Africa in second place.