Cricket History and Facts

The Parsi community in Bombay was the first Indian community to take up cricket, leading to the formation of the Oriental Cricket Club in 1848.

The weight of the ball was limited to between 5½  to 5¾ ounces, and the width of the bat to four inches. In 1774, the first leg-before law was published. Also around this time, a third stump became common. By 1780, three days had become the length of a major match, and this year also saw the creation of the first six-seam cricket ball.

The rich were amateurs for two reasons. One, they considered sport a kind of leisure. To play for the pleasure of playing and not for money was an aristocratic value. Two, there was not enough money in the game for the rich to be interested.

Originally, cricket matches had no time limit. The game went on for as long as it took to bowl out a side twice. Cricket was originally played on country commons, unfenced land that was public property. Cricket’s most important tools are all made of natural, pre-industrial materials. The bat is made of wood as are the stumps and the bails. The ball is made with leather, twine and cork. Even today both bat and ball are handmade, not industrially manufactured. 

The organisation of cricket in England reflected the nature of English society. The rich who could afford to play it for pleasure were called amateurs and the poor who played it for a living were called professionals.  The game was seasonal and did not offer employment the year round. Most professionals worked as miners or in other forms of working class employment in winter, the off-season. 

The Ranji Trophy is India's premier first-class cricket tournament, where teams represent various regional associations rather than religious or ethnic groups.

Cricket was promoted by the British as a tool to instill values of fair play, discipline, and sportsmanship, which were considered essential to the 'English gentleman' ideal.

Reverse swing is a bowling technique popularized by Pakistani bowlers like Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, and Waqar Younis, which significantly changed the game.

Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket in the late 1970s was instrumental in introducing and popularizing the format of One-Day Internationals.

First cricket club in India was Calcutta cricket club. It was established in the year 1792. India’s national cricket team played only in 1932 at Lords. It was established by British colonies.

A cricket ball is made up of cork covered by leather. The ball is layered and tightly wound with string or twine. The circumference of ball ranges from 224mm to 229mm in men’s cricket. 

A Parsi team beat the Bombay Gymkhana at cricket in 1889, just four years after the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, an organisation that was lucky to have amongst its early leaders the great Parsi statesman and intellectual Dadabhai Naoroji. 

The white cricket elite in India offered no help to the cricket enthusiastic Parsis. In fact, there was a quarrel between the Bombay Gymkhana, a whites-only club, and Parsi cricketers over the use of a public park. When it became clear that the colonial authorities were prejudiced in favour of Englishmen, the Parsis built their own gymkhana called the Oriental Cricket Club in Bombay to play cricket.

In the historical context of cricket, 'amateurs' were typically wealthy individuals who played for the love of the game, while 'professionals' were paid to play.