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10Before you readSport is an integral part of a healthy life. It is one way inwhich we amuse ourselves, compete with each other andstay fit. Among the various sports such as hockey, footballand tennis, cricket appears to be the most appealingnational entertainment today. How much do we reallyknow about the game called ‘cricket’?The Story ofCricketICricket grew out of the many stick-andball games played in England 500 yearsago. The word ‘bat’ is an old English word thatsimply means stick or club. By the seventeenthcentury, cricket had evolved enough to berecognisable as a distinct game. Till the middle ofthe eighteenth century, bats were roughly the sameshape as hockey sticks, curving outwards at thebottom. There was a simple reason for this: the ballwas bowled underarm, along the ground and thecurve at the end of the bat gave the batsman thebest chance of making contact.One of the peculiarities of cricket is that aTest match can go on for five days and still ———–

140/HONEYCOMBThe oldest cricket bat in existence(Note the curved end, similar to a hockey stick.)draw: resultof a game inwhich neitherside wins orlosesin a draw. No other modern team sport takes evenhalf as much time to complete. A football matchis generally over in an hour-and-a-half. Evenbaseball completes nine innings in less than halfthe time that it takes to play a limited-overs match,the shortened version of modern cricket!Another curious characteristic of cricket is thatthe length of the pitch is specified—22 yards—but the size or shape of the ground is not. Mostother team sports such as hockey and footballlay down the dimensions of the playing area.Cricket does not. Grounds can be oval like theAdelaide Oval or nearly circular, like Chepauk inChennai. A six at the Melbourne Cricket Groundneeds to clear much more ground than it does atFeroz Shah Kotla in Delhi.There’s a historical reason behind both theseoddities. Cricket was the earliest modern teamsport to be codified. The first written ‘Laws ofCricket’ were drawn up in 1744. They stated,“the principals shall choose from amongst thegentlemen present two umpires who shallabsolutely decide all disputes. The stumps mustbe 22 inches high and the bail across them sixinches. The ball must be between five and sixounces, and the two sets of stumps 22 yardsbaseball:game (populrin the U.S.A.)played with abat and ballby two teamsof nineplayers eachon a fieldwith fourbasesdimensions:length,breadth, etc.oval: shapedlike an eggcodified:standardisedwith rules andregulations2022-23

THE STORYapart”. The world’s first cricket club was formedin Hambledon in the1760s and the MaryleboneCricket Club (MCC) was founded in 1787.During the 1760s and 1770s it became commonto pitch the ball through the air rather than rollit along the ground. This change gave bowlersthe options of length, deception through the air,plus increased pace. It also opened newpossibilities for spin and swing. In response,batsmen had to master timing and shotselection. One immediate result was thereplacement of the curved bat with the straightone. The weight of the ball was limited to between5½ to 5¾ ounces, and the width of the bat tofour inches. In 1774, the first leg-before law waspublished. Also around this time, a third stumpbecame common. By 1780, three days hadbecome the length of a major match, and thisyear also saw the creation of the first six-seamcricket ball.OFCRICKET/141length: thedistance fromthe bastmanat which theball pitchesdeceptionthrough theair: The ballis no longerrolled alongthe groundbut sentthrough theair. Hencethe possiblevariety or‘deception’in bowling.shotselection:choice ofstrokesThe pavilion of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 18742022-23

142/HONEYCOMBIf you look at the game’s equipment, you cansee how cricket both changed with changingtimes and yet fundamentally remained true toits origins in rural England. Cricket’s mostimportant tools are all made of natural, preindustrial materials. The bat is made withleather, twine and cork. Even today both batand ball are handmade, not industriallymanufactured. The material of the bat changedslightly over time. Once it was cut out of a singlepiece of wood. Now it consists of two pieces, theblade which is made out of the wood of the willowtree and the handle which is made out of canethat became available as European colonialistsand trading companies established themselvesin Asia. Unlike golf and tennis, cricket hasA rough-and-ready cricket game being played in a village in the Himalayas (1894)(Notice the home-made wickets and bat, carved out of rough bits of wood.)2022-23

THE STORYrefused to remake its tools with industrial orman-made materials: plastic, fibreglass andmetal have been firmly rejected.But in the matter of protective equipment,cricket has been influenced by technologicalchange. The invention of vulcanised rubber ledto the introduction of pads in 1848 andprotective gloves soon afterwards, and themodern game would be unimaginable withouthelmets made out of metal and syntheticlightweight materials.OFCRICKET/143Comprehension Check1. Cricket is originally a/an(i) Indian game.(ii) British game.(iii) international game.Mark the right answer.2. “There is a historical reason behind both theseoddities.” In the preceding two paragraphs, find twowords/phrases that mean the same as ‘oddities’.3. How is a cricket bat different from a hockey stick?IIThe origins of Indian cricket are to be found inBombay and the first Indian community to startplaying the game was the small community ofZoroastrians, the Parsis. Brought into close contactwith the British because of their interest in tradeand the first Indian community to westernise, theParsis founded the first Indian cricket club, the2022-23

144/HONEYCOMBcompatriots:fellowcountrymenOriental Cricket Club, in Bombay in 1848. Parsiclubs were funded and sponsored by Parsibusinessmen like the Tatas and the Wadias. Thewhite cricket elite in India offered no help to theenthusiastic Parsis. In fact, there was a quarrelbetween the Bombay Gymkhana, a whites-onlyclub, and Parsi cricketers over the use of a publicpark. The Parsis complained that the park wasleft unfit for cricket because the polo ponies of theBombay Gymkhana dug up the surface. When itbecame clear that the colonial authorities wereprejudiced in favour of their white compatriots, theParsis built their own gymkhana to play cricket in.The rivalry between the Parsis and the BombayGymkhana had a happy ending for these pioneersof Indian cricket. A Parsi team beat the BombayGymkhana at cricket in 1889, just four years afterThe Parsi team, the first Indian cricket team to tour England in 1886(Note that along with the traditional cricket flannels, they wear Parsi caps.)2022-23

THE STORYthe foundation of theIndian National Congressin 1885, an organisationthat was lucky to haveamongst its early leadersthe great Parsi statesmanand intellectual DadabhaiNaoroji.Moder n cricket isdominated by Tests andone-day internationals,played between nationalteams. The players whoPalwankar Baloo (bornbecome famous, who live1875). At a time whenon in the memories ofIndians were not allowedcricket’s public, are thoseto play Test cricket, hewas the greatest Indianwho have played for theirslow bowler of his time.country. The playersIndian fans remembereven now are those who were fortunate enough toplay Test cricket. C.K. Nayudu, an outstandingIndian batsman of his time, lives on in the popularimagination when some of his greatcontemporaries like Palwankar Vithal andPalwankar Baloo have been forgotten. Eventhough Nayudu was past his cricketing primewhen he played for India in its first Test matchesagainst England starting in 1932, his place inIndia’s cricket history is assured because he wasthe country’s first Test captain.India entered the world of Test cricket in 1932,a decade and a half before it became anindependent nation. This was possible because2022-23OFCRICKET/145

146/HONEYCOMBTest cricket from its origins in 1877 wasorganised as a contest between different parts ofthe British empire, not sovereign nations. The firstTest was played between England and Australiawhen Australia was still a white-settler colony.Similarly, the small countries of the Caribbeanthat together make up the West Indies teamwere British colonies till well after the SecondWorld War.Comprehension CheckWrite True or False against each of the following sentences.(i) India joined the world of Testcricket before Independence.(ii) The colonisers did nothing to encouragethe Parsis in playing cricket.(iii) Palwankar Baloo was India’sfirst Test captain.(iv) Australia played its first Test againstEngland as a sovereign nation.IIITelevision coverage changed cricket. It expandedthe audience for the game by beaming cricket intosmall towns and villages. It also broadenedcricket’s social base. Children who had neverpreviously had the chance to watch internationalcricket because they lived outside the bigcities, could now watch and learn by imitatingtheir heroes.2022-23

THE STORYThe technology of satellite television and theworld-wide reach of multi-national televisioncompanies created a global market for cricket.Matches in Sydney could now be watched live inSurat. Since India had the largest viewershipfor the game amongst the cricket-playingnations and the largest market in the cricketingworld, the game’s centre of gravity shifted toSouth Asia. This shift was symbolised by theshifting of the ICC headquarters from London totax-free Dubai.One hundred and fifty years ago the first Indiancricketers, the Parsis, had to struggle to find anopen space to play in. Today, the globalmarketplace has made Indian players thebest-paid, most famous cricketers in the game, menfor whom the world is a stage. This transformationwas made up of many smaller changes: thereplacement of the gentlemanly amateur by thepaid professional, the triumph of the one-day gameas it overshadowed Test cricket in terms ofpopularity, and the remarkable changes in globalcommerce and technology.OFCRICKET/147RAMACHANDRA GUHA[adapted from Chapter 7 ofIndia and the Contemporary World – I,Textbook in History for Class IX, NCERT ]2022-23

148/HONEYCOMBComprehension Check1. A ‘professional’ cricket player is one who makes a living byplaying cricket. Find the opposite of ‘professional’ in the lastparagraph.2. In “the triumph of the one-day game”, ‘triumph’ means theone-day game’s(i) superiority to Test cricket.(ii) inferiority to Test cricket.(iii) achievement and success over Test cricket.(iv) popularity among viewers.Mark the right answer.3. “.the men for whom the world is a stage”.(i) It refers to the famous cricket fields in the world.(ii) It means that there are many cricket playing countriesin the world.(iii) It implies that cricketers are like actors and every cricketground is like a stage on which the drama of cricket isenacted the world over.Mark the right answer.Working with the Text1. Name some stick-and-ball games that you have witnessedor heard of.2. The Parsis were the first Indian community to take tocricket. Why?3. The rivalry between the Parsis and the BombayGymkhana had a happy ending for the former. Whatdoes ‘a happy ending’ refer to?4. Do you think cricket owes its present popularity totelevision? Justify your answer.5. Why has cricket a large viewership in India, not in Chinaor Russia?6. What do you understand by the game’s (cricket)‘equipment’?2022-23