Village green

to World Cup

(Taken from The making of a champion - A world Class Cricketer by Andrew Langley)

Cricket is a very old game. One record shows that an English prince was playing something called ‘creaget' over700 years ago. Some people believe that the distance between stumps and the front crease (or popping crease) (now 1.22 metres) was originally measured out using an arrow. Cricket was certainly popular by the reign of Elizabeth I in the 1590's and soon it was being played abroad.

Modern methods

The game of cricket as we know it was born in Hambledon, a little village in Hampshire, in southern England. During the 1780's, the Hambledon team beat all comers - even county sides. Slowly, cricket became a national sport. The shape of the bat changed, three stumps were used instead of two and lawnmowers made better cricket pitches possible.

The greatest invention of all was the round arm bowling. Until the 1820's, the ball was bowled underarm. Then players found that they could bowl faster and better by swinging their arms round, and later, over the shoulder. (This method may have been invented by a woman, who was unable to bowl underarm because of her wide skirts.) Roundarm gave the bowlers the chance to develop new weapons of swerve, bounce and spin.

Test cricket begins

Cricket grew up in Britain, but the game quickly took root in countries of the old British Empire such as Australia and India. In 1859 an English touring party boarded a ship for North America to play its first overseas match.

The first ever Test match was played on an England tour of Australia in 1877. So began a series of contests that have gone on ever since. By the 1950's these original countries had been joined by South Africa, the West Indies, India, New Zealand and Pakistan. The first World Cup of limited-overs matches (currently 60 each side) took place in England in 1975. Since then several other countries from Africa and Asia have also gained Test match status.