Cricket originated as a bat and ball outdoor sport in southern England in the late 1500’s. This sport is played worldwide these days.  Cricket is a game played between two teams consisting of eleven players each.  The sport is played usually on grass fields, generally oval in shape and has a flat rectangular strip of land in the center called the “pitch”. The pitch spans about 22 yards. There are two wickets (3 pieces of thin wood forms a wicket) fixed on each end of the pitch. At the beginning of the game a coin is tossed between the captains of the two teams. The team who wins the toss elects to bat or field first.

Rules of the Game
Team members (10 of the 11) from the bowling/fielding team are positioned at various locations on the field. The “batsman” (analogous to hitter in baseball) stands at one wicket and behind him will be the “wicket keeper”. A “bowler” (analogous to a pitcher in baseball) from the fielding team throws a leather ball weighing about 5.5 ounces from one wicket towards the wicket where the batsman is stationed. The batsman guards his wicket from the ball thrown by the bowler with a wooden bat. While batting, the batsman can hit the ball anywhere on the ground. The batsman can get dismissed in one of the following ways. (i) The batsman could miss the ball thrown by the bowler and if the ball hits the wicket the batsman is out. (ii) If he hits the ball with his bat and is caught by one of the fielders including the wicket keeper he is out as well. If he hits the ball on the ground, he can run to the wicket on the other end of the pitch for runs. There is a team member from the batting team who will be standing at the non-strikers end and he will run towards the other wicket at this time. In such a way the strike is rotated. (iii) While running between wickets for runs, the fielders can get one of the batsmen out if he throws the ball to the respective wickets and at that time the batsman has not reached the wicket. There are different ways of scoring runs apart from running between wickets . If the batsman manages to hit the ball to the boundary of the field it will grant his team 4 runs and if the ball goes above the boundary without bouncing on the field, the batsman will gain 6 runs. The bowler should throw the ball 6 different times to complete what is called an “over”. Like that the runs pile up and new batsmen come in when wickets fall. This continues until the number of overs gets over or the wickets fall completely. There is a line on the pitch called “crease” near the wicket within which the bowler should throw the ball. If the bowler steps over the crease then it is called a “no-ball” and the bowler will have to throw another time. If the ball goes away from the wicket by more than one bat length then it is considered as a wide ball and the bowler has to throw the ball another time. At the same time the batting team earns an additional run to their score. The winner of this sport is decided on how much runs one team makes or in other words, the team with the most number of runs wins after both sides have completed the batting process.

Both the short version and long version of cricket is played all over the world. The long version is called a “Test Match” which lasts for five days and the short version is called a “One Day International (ODI)” match with 50 overs each. There are even shorter versions of cricket introduced recently, called “20-20”, in which both teams face 20 overs each to decide the winner. Cricket is a very popular game in South Asia in countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and also in Britain, Australia, South Africa and West Indies.