What is the sport called Cricket


Cricket is a sport first originated in Wngland. Cricket was invented by British. While cricket was primarily played starting 17th century, there have been some obscure and speculative references of sport being played in 13th century during era of King Edward II. Cricket is game played with a flat bat and a ball with each team consisting of 11 players. The goal of the game is to score as many runs as a team can score while getting their turn to bat and getting the other team out before they can reach their target. Each team can bat once and have to field while other team bats. Cricket is played in circular or oval shaped fields. The patch in the middle of the ground is called the pitch which is 22 yards in length. At each end of the pitch, three sticks are planted in the ground called stumps. Two small wooden pieces are placed on top of stumps called bails. This setup is called a wicket. Two batters from the batting team will bat on each end of the pitch. Runs are scored by hitting a ball and then running back and forth from one end of the pitch to another end. Batter can send the ball to the boundary while pitching on the ground one or more times to score 4 runs or hit the ball over the boundary without having it bounce on the ground to score 6 runs. Fielding team will place 11 of their players at various locations in the field. Person from the fielding team throwing the ball to a batter from batting team is called a bowler. Bowler’s goal is to get the batter out. Bowler will typically throw the ball on the pitch letting it bounce once on the pitch and eventually reaching a batter. There are different ways to dismiss or get a batter out. The bowler can throw the ball to a batter, induce a shot from the batter and have that ball caught directly by one of the fielder in the field. Bowler can also throw the ball toward a batter to make him or her miss and to hit the stumps or bails, thus disturbing his wicket. Bowler will deliver ball 6 times when their turn comes up. The grouping of 6 deliveries that a bowler throws to a batter is called an Over. Batters can also get run out while attempting to score a run and getting caught outside of their safe zone marked by a crease at each end of the pitch. Modern game of cricket contains many versions. These versions are called Test Cricket, One day internationals (ODI), and Twenty20. Originally, game of cricket lasted for many days. In the older version of the game , each team got a chance to bat twice and field twice taking as many days as possible to conclude the game. In modern version of the game, this mode of play called Test Cricket has been fixed to five days. So, Test cricket can last as many as five days.  One day internationals (also referred to as ODI) is a game of cricket that lasts one day. Each side gets 50 overs to bowl to another team and each side gets to bat once. Goal of a team is to score as many runs as possible in 50 overs while restricting their opposition to lesser score or getting them out completely. ODI typically lasts for 6 to 7 hours. Even more popular version of the game is called Twenty20 or T20. In this mode of the game, each team only gets 20 overs to bat and have to get their opponents out in 20 overs or to restrict them to lesser number of runs. This mode of cricket is very popular because the game only lasts for 3 hours requiring much less time of the viewers. There are many countries beside England that currently play cricket making the sport a truly global sport. The countries that play cricket are England, South Africa, Australia, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West Indies.  The sport is also played by new entrants in the game, namely Netherlands, Ireland, Namibia, UAE, Afghanistan, USA, Canada, Papua New Guinea.