Introduction – Cricket is a global passion, played everywhere from Test match arenas to village greens, tropical beaches and dusty back lots. star-studded internationals for men and women; Club Championships, first class cricket and twenty over franchisee leagues.

Origin – The origin of cricket is unknown. Most probably, its name was derived from the Old English cryce, which means “stick,” and, in its rude form, resembled the 13th century game known as club-ball. Cricket evolved in England in the 18th century, mainly because of the interest of great landowners who tried their skills on a field of play with their tenants and the local peasantry. The ruling body for the Test matches is the International Cricket Conference, founded in 1909 as the Imperial Cricket Conference. The year of the first official championships between the counties in England is recognized in 1890. In 1904 the M. C. C. formed the Advisory County Cricket Committee, which has dealt with every aspect of this major English contest since. The Women’s Cricket Association was founded in England in 1926. Women compete on an amateur basis. In 1958 the International Women’s Cricket Council was formed.

How to play – Cricket is a game played with a bat and ball on a large field, known as a ground, between two teams of 11 players each. The object of the game is to score runs when at bat and to put out, or dismiss, the opposing batsmen when in the field. The cricket rules displayed on this page here are for the traditional form of cricket which is called “Test Cricket”. However, there are other formats of the game eg. 50 over matches, Twenty20 Cricket etc where the rules differ slightly. Test cricket is a game that spans over two innings. This means that one team needs to bowl the other team out twice and score more runs than them to win the match. Another key difference between test cricket and other forms of cricket is the length of the innings. In test cricket there is no limit to the innings length. Whereas in one-day cricket & Twenty20 cricket there are a certain number of overs per innings. The only limits in test cricket is a 5-day length. Before the game begins an official will toss a coin. The captain who guesses the correct side of the coin will then choose if they want to bat or field first. One team will then bat while the other will bowl & field. The aim of the batting team is to score runs while the aim of the fielding team is to bowl ten people out and close the batting teams’ innings. Although there are eleven people in each team only ten people need to be bowled out as you cannot have one person batting alone. Batting is done in pairs.

“I hate losing and cricket being my first love, once I enter the ground it’s a different zone altogether and that hunger for winning is always there.”

– Sachin Tendulkar, Most run-getter across all formats and greatest batsman of the 21st century.