Chapter - 7 History and Sport: The Story of Cricket

Test cricket is different from other games in many ways. These are as listed below:

1. It is long drawn which continues till 5 days and still can end in a draw. No other modern team like football, tennis or baseball taken even half as much time to finish a game.
2. The length of the pitch is specified - 22 yards; however, the size or shape of the ground is not. Even the sizes of the ball, bat and stumps have been regulated over a period of time unlike the ground. Most other team sports such as hockey and football lay down the dimensions of the playing area but cricket does not.
3. Unlike golf and tennis, cricket has refused to remake its tools with industrial or man-made materials: plastic, fibre glass and metal.

Peculiarities of Test cricket are shaped by its historical beginnings as a village game is obvious from statements given below:

1. Initially, cricket matches had no time limit; it went on for as long as it took to bowl out a side twice. The rhythms of village life were slower and cricket's rules were made before the Industrial Revolution. However, in the post-industrial period people were paid by the hour or day or week for work done. Therefore, as work gained importance the games like football and hockey were codified fit the routines of industrial city life.
2. Cricket's vagueness about the size of a cricket ground is a result of its village origins. It was originally played on the unfenced public property. Thus, the size of the ground varied from one village to another, so there were no designated boundaries or boundary hits.
3. Cricket's most important tools such as bat, ball, stumps and bails are all made of natural and pre-industrial materials.

One way in which in the nineteenth century, technology brought about a change in equipment is invention of the vulcanised rubber. This led to the introduction of pads and gloves as protective equipment.

An example where no change in equipment has taken place is despite the technological development are that the bat, ball, stumps and bails continued to be made out of wood, i.e. out of natural and pre-industrial material.

Cricket became popular in India and the West Indies because of the following reasons:

1. Both countries were a part of the British colonial empire.
2. British imperial officials used it as a symbol of racial and social superiority.
3. In these countries, the game was instituted as a popular sport either by white settlers or by local elites who wanted to imitate the habits of their colonial masters.

On the other hand, the game was not so popular in countries like those of South America since they were not dominated by imperial England, but were by American, Spanish and Portuguese. Also, the pre-industrial methods of cricket made it a difficult game to export. Hence, it took root only in countries that the British had dominated and seized.

1. The Parsis were the first Indian community to set up a cricket club in India due to their close contact with the British. They were the first ones to westernise themselves. During this process of westernisation, they founded the first Indian cricket club, in Bombay, in 1848, called the Oriental Cricket Club. They beat the British team in 1889-- filling their hearts and soul with pride. Hence, they became the pioneers of Indian cricket.
2. Mahatma Gandhi condemned the Pentangular tournament because he viewed it as competition aimed to divide India on the basis of religious lines. He believed that this was disadvantageous at the time because Indian nationalists were trying to unite the diverse communities and regions of India into one secular whole.
3. The name of the ICC was changed from the Imperial Cricket Conference to the International Cricket Conference in 1965 after British influence declined in trade, commerce and international politics due to the process of decolonisation. This reflected the decline of British influence in the post-colonial period. However, despite the change in name it continued to retain the colonial spirit. It was dominated by England and Australia, who had the right to veto over its proceedings. The privileged position of England and Australia were scrapped only in 1989 in favour of equal membership.
4. The significance of the shift of the ICC headquarters from London to Dubai was because of the following reasons:

• • The technology of satellite television and the world wide reach of multi-national television companies that created a global market for cricket.
  • The game's centre of gravity shifted to South Asia. This was the result of India having the largest viewership and market for cricket compared to other cricket-playing nations.

Thus, the shifting of headquarters proved that cricket was no longer the sole domain of England or Australia.

Advances in technology, especially television technology, have affected the development of contemporary cricket in the following manner:

1. By broadening the viewership and popularity of the game.
2. Introducing coloured uniforms, protective equipments, field regulations and day-night limited-over matches have all helped the pre-industrial rural game to adapt to the changing modern world.
3. The worldwide reach of satellite television has widened the audience of the game by bringing cricket into small towns and villages. This has created a global market for cricket.
4. The presence of a wide-ranging, mass audience has made cricket a money-making venture for advertisers, television channels and cricket boards.
5. Cricketers too have benefited from the way cricket has been marketed through media because besides getting paid better by their cricket boards, they are now creating even larger sums of money by making commercials for a wide range of products.