history of sport

Introduction

Cricket grew out of the 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.

it was popular enough for its fans to be fined for playing it on Sunday instead of going to church.

The Historical Development of Cricket as a Game in England  

Peculiarities of  cricket

a match can go on for five days and still end in a draw. No other modern team sport takes even half as much time to complete.

the length of the pitch is specified – 22 yards – but the size or shape of the ground is not. Most other team sports, such as hockey and football lay down the dimensions of the playing area.

Reason

cricket gave itself rules and regulations so that it could be played in a uniform and standardised way.

The first written ‘Laws of Cricket’ were drawn up in 1744.

umpires  were choose from gentleman who shall absolutely decide all disputes.

The stumps must be 22 inches high and the bail across them six inches. The ball must be between 5 and 6 ounces, and the two sets of stumps 22 yards apart’. There were no limits on the shape or size of the bat. It appears that 40 notches.

The world’s first cricket club was formed in Hambledon in the 1760s and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was founded in 1787.

In 1788 The MCC’s revised  the laws.

One immediate result was the replacement of the curved bat with the straight one.

The weight of the ball was limited to between 5½ to 5¾ ounces, and the width of the bat to four inches.

In 1774, the first leg-before law was published. a third stump became common.

By 1780, three days had become the length of a major match, and

 this year also saw the creation of the first six-seam cricket ball.

during the nineteenth century (the rule about wide balls was applied, the exact circumference of the ball was specified, protective equipment like pads and gloves became available, boundaries were introduced where previously all shots had to be run.

Cricket’s connection with a rural past

the length of a Test match. Originally, cricket matches had no time limit. The game went on for as long as it took to bowl out a side twice.

the size of a cricket ground is a result of its village origins.

It was played on country commons, unfenced land that was public property. The size of the commons varied from one village to another.

Cricket’s most important tools are all made of natural, pre-industrial materials. The bat is made of wood as are the stumps and the bails. The ball is made with leather, twine and cork.

Changes in the Bat

Once it was cut out of a single piece of wood. Now it consists of two pieces, the blade which is made out of the wood of the willow tree and the handle which is made out of cane that became available as European colonialists and trading companies established themselves in Asia.

influenced by technological change

The invention of vulcanized rubber led to the introduction of pads in 1848 and protective gloves soon afterwards, and the modern game would be unimaginable without helmets made out of metal and synthetic lightweight materials.

Terms.

Patronage – Agreement by wealthy supporter to give financial support for a specific cause.

 Subscription – Collected financial contribution for a specific purpose (such as cricket).

Hierarchy – Organised by rank and status

Cricket and Victorian England.

The rich who could afford to play it for pleasure were called amateurs and the poor who played it for a living were called professionals.

Armatures were played for the pleasure of playing and not for money was an aristocratic value.

Two, there was not enough money in the game for the rich to be interested.

Amateurs were called Gentlemen while professionals had to be content with being described as Players. They even entered the ground from different entrances. Amateurs tended to be batsmen.

Cricket is a batsman’s game because its rules were made to favors ‘Gentlemen.

the captain of a cricket team was traditionally a batsman:

Len Hutton was the first captain from professional.

 The English boarding school was the institution that trained English boys for careers in the military, the civil service and the church, the three great institutions of imperial England. 

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, men like Thomas Arnold, headmaster of the famous Rugby School and founder of the modern public school system, saw team sport like cricket and rugby not just as outdoor play, but as an organised way of teaching English boys the discipline, the importance of hierarchy, the skills, the codes of honour and the leadership qualities that helped them build and run the British empire.

Sport for girls.

Due to Dorothea Beale, principal of Cheltenham Ladies College from 1858 to 1906, reported to the schools Enquiry Commission in 1864, ‘The vigorous exercise which boys get from cricket, etc., must be supplied in the case of girls by walking and … skipping.’

By the 1890s, school began acquiring playgrounds and allowing girls to play some of the games earlier considered male preserves. But the competition was still discouraged.

The Spread of Cricket.

It took root only in countries that the British conquered and ruled. In these colonies, cricket was established as a popular sport either by white settlers (as in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies and Kenya) or by local elites who wanted to copy the habits of their colonial masters, as in India.

 Indian and Afro-Caribbean population was discouraged from participating in organised club cricket, which remained dominated by white plantation owners and their servants.

In the West Indies, the game became hugely popular. Success at cricket became a measure of racial equality and political progress.

Political leaders of Caribbean countries like Forbes Burnham and Eric Williams saw in the game a chance for self respect and international standing.

West Indies won its first Test series against England in 1950, it was celebrated as a national achievement.

The first black player led the West Indies Test team was in 1960 when Frank Worrell was named captain.

From 1932 a national team was given the right to represent India in a Test match.

Mulattos – People of mixed European and African descent.

Dominion – Self-governing areas under the control of the British crown.

Cricket, Race and Religion.

Cricket in colonial India was organised on the principle of race and religion.

The first Indian club, the Calcutta Cricket Club, was established in 1792 and played by British military men and civil servants in all-white clubs and gymkhanas.

The origins of Indian cricket was found in Bombay by the small community of Zoroastrians, the Parsis.

The first Indian cricket club, the Oriental Cricket Club in Bombay in 1848 and sponsored by Parsi businessmen like the Tatas and the Wadias.

The Bombay Gymkhana was a whites club.
A Parsi team beat the Bombay Gymkhana at cricket in 1889.
Applications for establishment of gymkhanas based on religion were more likely to be approved.
The tournament was initially called the Quadrangular, because it was played by four teams: the Europeans, the Parsis, the Hindus and the Muslims.
 It later became the Pentangular when a fifth team was added, namely, the Rest, which comprised all the communities left over, such as the Indian Christians. For example, Vijay Hazare, a Christian, played for the Rest.
Mahatma Gandhi, condemned the Pentangular tournaments. 

The distinguished editor of the newspaper the Bombay Chronicle, S.A. Brelvi, the famous radio commentator A.F.S. Talyarkhan and India’s most respected political figure, and Mahatama Gandhi  said these tournaments communally divisive competition that was out of place in a time when nationalists were trying to unite India’s diverse population.

The Modern Transformation of the ransformation of the ransformation of the Game.
India entered the world of Test cricket in 1932.