Since it has been made very clear by the current Mayor of Indianapolis that a cricket field is to be constructed on the east side of our city, we at the Weekly View thought that a brief introduction and orientation to Great Britain’s most popular sport might be in order. I must admit that while I have, of course, heard of the sport, my only experience in actually viewing it was briefly in an episode of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner. The episode was entitled “The Girl Who Was Death” and was my favorite episode of the series but that is definitely another story.
Most Americans who know of the game of cricket consider it the “great grandfather” of American baseball. We do know that the game first appeared in Southwest England in the sixteenth century. The records of a 1598 court case contain a reference to a game of the “crekett” played on the commons of Guilford, Surrey in 1550. It may have started as a kid’s game, but by 1540 adults were playing it. Some sports historians claim that it was the first professional sport, even before horse racing and boxing. It’s known that King Charles II sponsored a team and paid his players wages for their services.
By the 18th century it was England’s national sport, and the most popular sport to lay wagers on. As the British Empire grew in the 19th century, the popularity of cricket grew in its colonies, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. Cricket became very popular in the eastern part of the United States in the early part of the 19th century and continued to grow until the Civil War. After that, the popularity of cricket declined as the game of baseball grew. Of course it’s still played in the U.S. as a number of amateur teams compete across the country.
Cricket is a bat and ball game. It’s made up of two teams with eleven players on each side. The object of the game is for one team to score more runs than its opponent. One side attempts to hit a delivered ball and score the runs. The player who attempts to hit the ball is the batsman. The player who delivers the ball to the batsman is called the bowler. The game has two periods called innings. Each side has a turn at bat in which all eleven players are batsman during these innings. The team defending the field can have all eleven in play, but only two batsman can be on the field. The batsmen attempt to hit the ball and score until they are all dismissed or retired. When ten batsmen are dismissed, the other side takes the bat. A bowler can only deliver six balls — after that, there’s a new bowler. After both teams have gone through their batting lineup in the second inning the team with the most runs scored is the winner.
The center field has a 22 foot long strip called the pitch. At one end are two sets of three wooden stakes called wickets. It is the wickets that the bowler aims for. The size of the field is determined by the umpire. Cricket, like baseball, can’t be played in wet weather. Like baseball, the game turns on the action of two players. In baseball it’s the pitcher and batter, in cricket it’s the bowler and batsman.
The Australians really, really took to cricket and the Land Down Under has produced some of the game’s most innovative and talented players and matches, but Australian and English teams are always competitive.
I said at the beginning that this would be a brief introduction to cricket. It has many ties to American baseball but many, many differences as well. It’s a 450-year-old game with a great number of subtle complications and nuances. As I learn more about cricket, I will try to pass it on to you.
snicewanger@yahoo.com
