History of Cricket Game | ICC Cricket

Introduce you all to one of the most popular sports by narrating the History of Cricket Game. In the 13th century in rural England, a few country boys began playing a game involving a ball made of stone to be bowled at something called a wicket. A special stump made of two uprights and a crossbar on top known as a bale. The challenger was to hit the bale while a batsman tried to stop the ball from reaching its target by hitting it away with a wooden bat that looked a bit like a hockey stick but considerably longer and heavier. As time passed, this game began to gain more popularity among other villagers and even adults started to participate in it by 1611, overlapping with the dictionary's definition of cricket as a boy's game. This attracted the attention of some betters who started creating their own teams to compete and increase the odds of winning. After 1660,

England was going through significant changes and some rich and important people like nobles began hiring exceptionally skilled cricket players from the villages. These talented players became some of the very first professional cricket players and the first known game in which the teams used county names was in 1709. In the first half of the 18th century, cricket established itself as a leading sport in London and the south-eastern counties of England demanding the need for more structure. So, in 1744, the first laws of cricket were written by the Star and Garter Club whose members ultimately founded the famous Merrily born Cricket Club at Lords in 1787. But in 1760, a major change occurred in the game when the polar stopped bowling underarm deliveries and began to pitch the ball with over arms which led to a significant increase in pace or bowling speed. In response to that innovation, the old, hockey stick-like bat was replaced with a straight bat. Then, first-class cricket began in 1772, when the Hambledon Club organized three matches between Hampshire 11 and England 11 with the first one played and brought half-penny down on June 24th and 25th. It marked the beginning of a new chapter in cricket history. As the British Empire expanded around the world, they took this game to North America as early as the 17th century and in the 18th century, it arrived in other parts of the globe like the West Indies, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in the early years of the 19th century. The first ever international cricket game was between the US and Canada in 1844, played in New York. Then in 1859, a team of leading English professionals set off to North America on the first ever overseas tour and in 1862, the first English team toured Australia.

Then in 1909, three countries, namely England, Australia and South Africa, founded the Imperial Cricket Council to regulate international cricket between the three sides. Initially, they were not interested in expanding the sport beyond them, as they were considered equals in status at that time. Despite these initial limitations, the landscape of international cricket continued to evolve. West Indies, New Zealand and India became test-playing nations before World War II and Pakistan joined the ranks shortly thereafter in 1952, marking an important step in the global expansion of the sport as we know it today. Did you know Australia's Sir Donald Bradman has an astonishing career batting average of 99.94 in Test cricket. In 2002, wisdom declared Bradman the goat, followed by Sachin Tendulkar of India.

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