general Cricket TRIVIA

  1. It is known that an eleven-a-side match was played in 1697 for money in Sussex.
  2. Another such game was played at Dartford.
  3. Bowling then was underarm, a feat repeated by a recent cricket hero.
  4. The Term home run was used in cricket for many years before baseball.

Interesting
Cricket Facts & Trivia

  1. First set of rules came in 1774 with 22-yard pitches, 4 ball overs, stumping, no-balls and stopping wicket-keepers from blocking movements of the batsmen. Even then, Australians were different and an Australian over had 8 balls.
  2. Overarm bowling came late only in the 19th century - in 1864. This effectively stopped women from playing cricket, but they came back to the game at an International level recently.
  3. This was also the year when John Wisden started the record book of cricket: Cricketers' Almanac.
  4. No cricketer thought he was a great cricket player unless he became one of the year's five best players at least for one year during his playing days.
  5. Test matches against Australia in 1877 at Melbourne and this was repeated at Oval in 1882.Both times, Australia won and stumps used at the second match were burnt thus the Ashes of English cricket was formed. Cricket game facts report that both England and Australia are still fighting for these Ashes.
  6. One of the first great cricketers was WG Grace and he played for Gloucestershire. Since Australia was a long ship travel away, he did not lose the Ashes.
  7. Cricket was first the domain of Englishmen and their colonies dominated by them. Thus, New Zealand and South Africa became the first alternative test playing nations.

Cricket Facts & Trivia
Continued

  1. During the last century- the 20th century, many other countries became test-playing nations. According to Cricket Game Facts, they are West Indies, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) and Bangladesh.
  2. Other countries playing cricket, but not Test cricket are Canada, Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Hong Kong and Kenya.
  3. There is a lot of money now coming into cricket through one-day matches of 60 or 50 overs each. Since weather often interferes with the game, there is an infamous Duckworth-Lewis formula to decide how many overs should be played after the weather interference is known.
  4. Even that takes a day, and now people can only spend the evening at the ground. So, we have come up with 20 overs a side games. Weather interferes with these games too.
  5. There are many disputes regarding the greatest cricketer of all times. Among them are Don Bradman, Sir Vivian Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Abbas, David Gower, Jack Hobbs, and Greg Chappell, Garfield Sobers, Hall, Gilchrist, and other speed merchants of West Indies.

There are endless interesting facts and debates for those who play the game of Cricket and to those who play cricket only in their sitting rooms.