Cricket
About 500 years ago, a group of Englishmen began playing a little game using a bat, a ball, and a few sticks with pieces of wood on top of them. Little did they know that in a few short centuries, this little game would become the 3rd most popular sport ever.
Cricket is a widely known sport today that originated in England and was invented and first played by an unknown group of Englishmen sometime around the 13th century. Today, the only sports more popular than cricket are soccer and basketball.
This game was not played in the United States at first, though. The first arrival of cricket to the United States occurred in the early 18th century. Only minor changes have been made to this game since its invention, such as the exact equipment used for playing the official game.
Cricket has very specific requirements; the weight of the ball must be between 156 and 163 grams, and cannot have a circumference of over 23 cm. The bat cannot be longer than 97 cm or wider than 11.5 cm, but has no set weight limit. There is one person who fields with gloves: the wicket-keeper, who catches any missed pitches.
It is played in a circular, grassy area called a ground, and the pitches are thrown by the bowler on a long strip of special grass called the pitch. An important object is the wicket, which is a setup of three stumps arranged parallel to each other.
Two small wooden pieces called bails stand on top of the three stumps; they can easily be knocked off. The wicket must be 71 cm high and 23 cm wide for legal play.
On the pitch, there are several lines to be noted. There are two popping creases, which are chalk-drawn lines four feet in front of the wicket. There are also the return creases, which are lines in the middle of the pitch, 8.7 feet apart.
The bowler stands in the center of the pitch with the batter in front of him and the batter’s partner behind him with a bat; the batter and his partner each stand in front of opposite wickets. The bowler pitches the ball to the batter, who tries to hit the ball and block the wicket on his end of the pitch.
After hitting the ball, he can choose to run to the wicket on the opposite side of the pitch, passing the popping crease. His partner must run at the same time, but in the opposite direction of the batter.
If they pass each other and each make it a popping crease, a run is scored. They can continue switching places and scoring runs if the ball is hit far enough.
If the batter decides not to run, the ball may stay in the ground, scoring nothing, or, if the ball is hit far enough to leave the ground, the batter automatically scores six runs.
There are 4 ways to get the batter out. A batter is out a) if the ball hits the wicket, knocking any of the bails off, b) if the ball is caught in the air by a fielder, c) if the ball hits the batter before hitting the wicket, or d) if a fielder throws the ball at either wicket while the batter and his partner are running and knocks any bails off before the popping crease is passed.
In order for they pitching team to get up to bat, the bowler must get 10 out of the total it players out; this is why there is only one inning in a regular game. Sometimes, on special occasion, there are two innings; however, this makes for an extremely long game.
The bowler can either bounce the ball to the batter or throw it on a fly, but his arm must stay straight throughout his arm motion.
There are two wickets because the pitching direction is reversed every 6 pitches so every player can get a turn to bat. After the one or two innings, the team with the most runs is the winning team.
As safety precautions, cricket players almost always wear caged helmets and leg pads to protect themselves from injury via the cricket ball.
Although the wicket-keepers are the only fielders permitted to wear gloves, the batters can also wear them to protect from brush burns or bruises.
