CRICKET

The History of Cricket 

Cricket history is particularly murky and vague as to the exact origins of the game, it is believed to have been born in England in the late middle ages. Edward III banned a game similar to cricket in 1369, 'pila baculorea' or 'club ball' as it was known, as he saw it as being a distraction to his war effort.

Derek Birley in his wonderful book, 'A Social History of English Cricket' suggests the game came to England with the French during the time of the Norman Invasion, that their word 'criquet' was the dialect name for a variation of club ball, the game Edward the III 

had sought to eradicate.

There is record of the word 'creag' as a derivative of the word creaget in 1299-1300 in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts, for the then Prince Edward the II to play 'creag' and other games.

There is no evidence that creag was the same as criquet, the links are too tenuous and games rarely appear in any records of this time unless the aristocracy were playing them or trying to have them 

eradicated as being morally degenerate.

Cricket is first recorded as a game played by schoolboys in Guildford in the sixteenth century and is found recorded in an Italian -English dictionary in 1598.

Gambling, the Aristocracy and Working Classes

The game by 1611 was being played by adults, it is recorded that two men were prosecuted for playing cricket instead of attending church.

On a similar theme, in 1628 ten men were fined for playing cricket rather than attending church service, they also had to make a confession to the congregation as way of penance.

As the game continued to evolve amongst the working classes and the aristocracy, gambling became central to its growth.

The aristocracy in particular, had seen in it, a game with the obvious attributes to bet on its outcomes. Teams were assembled under the patronage of Aristocrats and purses were put up for 'great matches'.

In 1696, ' a great match at Cricket was played in Sussex, they were eleven of a side, and they played for fifty guineas apiece'.

The game had been growing both within the english upper classes and as a genuine recreational past time for rural workers in the southern counties of England.

The composite teams that were beginning to be assembled for 'great matches' during this period of the early 1700's, were crossing the class divides; as the purses played for encouraged the nobility that were patronizing the teams, to employ the best players that could be found.

Thus, rural workers who had become adept at the game were being employed to play as 'hands' for the aristocracy and were travelling for their employ.

At this time London, particularly North London, can lay claim to being the cradle of the game as matches staged in Islington at White Conduit Field had a 'field keeper' for cricket and the Angel Inn as part of its amenities.

In 1718 a match at White Conduit Field brought cricket into the law courts after a dispute between the two teams.

The other area to lay claim to the 'Cradle of Cricket' was Hambledon in Hampshire, where the matches staged at the Broad Down of Halfpenny were where cricket began to ' assume that truly skilful and scientific character which it now possesses.'

The men of Hambledon were immortalised in the writing of John Nyren, who captured the spirit of the club, its segregation between the classes and its rich and varied club life.

The game continued to spread through England as the provincial towns grew with industrialization, with the first recorded game in Yorkshire played in the 1750's.

The Laws of the Game

 

By 1744 the Laws of Cricket had been codified and in 1788 the laws were revised by the Marylebone Cricket Club, they covered the length of the pitch, the distance between creases, wicket size, and ball weight. 

After 1760 the game saw the evolution of over arm bowling, replacing under arm bowling as the main way to deliver the ball. The game began to see the use of various lengths utilised by bowlers and the development of the craft of batting, as batters sought to respond to new bowling techniques.

The 'Straight Bat' was introduced as part of this counter to new bowling techniques, the old bent 'hockey stick' style of bat went out of fashion.

See the pictures here from a display at the Lords Museum that show the bats evolution.

Derivation of the name of "cricket"

A number of words are thought to be possible sources for the term "cricket". In the earliest known reference to the sport in 1598 (see below), it is called creckett. The name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch krick(-e), meaning a stick; or the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff.^[2] 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 met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase"), which also suggests a Dutch connection in the game's origin. It is more likely that the terminology of cricket was based on words in use in south east England at the time and, given trade connections with the County of Flanders, especially in the 15th century when it belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, many Middle Dutch^[3] words found their way into southern English dialects.

  Early 17th century

A number of references occur up to the English Civil War and these indicate that cricket had become an adult game contested by parish teams, but there is no evidence of county strength teams at this time. Equally, there is little evidence of the rampant gambling that characterised the game throughout the 18th century. It is generally believed, therefore, that village cricket had developed by the middle of the 17th century but that county cricket had not and that investment in the game had not begun.

Balls per over

In 1889 the immemorial four ball over was replaced by a five ball over and then this was changed to the current six balls an over in 1900. Subsequently, some countries experimented with eight balls an over. In 1922, the number of balls per over was changed from six to eight in Australia only. In 1924 the eight ball over was extended to New Zealand and in 1937 to South Africa. In England, the eight ball over was adopted experimentally for the 1939 season; the intention was to continue the experiment in 1940, but first-class cricket was suspended for the Second World War and when it resumed, English cricket reverted to the six ball over. The 1947 Laws of Cricket allowed six or eight balls depending on the conditions of play. Since the 1979/80 Australian and New Zealand seasons, the six ball over has been used worldwide and the most recent version of the Laws in 2000 only permits six ball overs.

World Series Cricket

See also: World Series Cricket

The money problems of top cricketers were also the root cause of another cricketing crisis that arose in 1977 when the Australian media magnate Kerry Packer fell out with the Australian Cricket Board over TV rights. Taking advantage of the low remuneration paid to players, Packer retaliated by signing several of the best players in the world to a privately run cricket league outside the structure of international cricket. World Series Cricket hired some of the banned South African players and allowed them to show off their skills in an international arena against other world-class players. The schism lasted only until 1979 and the "rebel" players were allowed back into established international cricket, though many found that their national teams had moved on without them. Long-term results of World Series Cricket have included the introduction of significantly higher player salaries and innovations such as coloured kit and night games.

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.

The first limited overs international match took place at Melbourne Cricket Ground 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. Limited overs internationals (LOIs or ODIs, after one-day Internationals) have since grown to become a massively popular form of the game, especially for busy people who want to be able to see a whole match. The International Cricket Council reacted to this development by organising the first Cricket World Cup in England in 1975, with all the Test playing nations taking part.