Cricket - an overview and history of the sport
Overview
Cricket can be described as a sporting combination of strategy, skill and athleticism. The game is contested by two teams of 11 players and involves a bowler delivering a ball at a batsman, who attempts to hit it. From this simple premise comes a number of strategies, tactics and techniques to achieve overall success. The game today has many different formats and can be played competitively and recreationally as a five-day test, a one-day match or the popular Twenty20 competition.
History
It is believed that cricket has been around since the Dark Ages. By Tudor times cricket had developed into a format similar to the modern game we know and was being played in parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey.
The basic game of cricket was played in many formats for hundreds of years, but in 1788 the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) devised the first set of laws. These laws set out the basic rules for a bat and ball, the size of a wicket, pitch dimensions, the number of overs and different ways that a batter could get out.
The Marylebone Cricket Club based at Lords Cricket Ground has now gone on to be known as the 'home of cricket' and even today the MCC are the custodians of the laws and make periodic revisions and modifications.