CRICKET, a well-known game, played in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and India, the players being arranged in two contesting parties of 11 each. Strutt, one of the best English authorities on ancient sport, adduces some evidence to show that "club-ball," played in the 14th century, may have been the parent of cricket.
Cricket stands pre-eminent in England among the many outdoor pastimes pur sued during the summer months. Cricket is not solely an affair of skill; chance is also a factor to a very large extent. To excel at cricket it is necessary that the study of the game should begin early, as a great deal of patience and practice is requisite. At nearly all, if not all of the English public schools, a cricket "coach" or tutor is engaged.
Cricket may be played either single wicket or double-wicket, but it is now so rarely played in the former manner that we can safely confine our attention to the latter. For a double-wicket match game 11 players on a side are necessary, and after the captains have tossed to settle who shall go to the bat first, the loser places his field and the winner sends in two of his surest, safest batters to defend the wickets and to make runs. The disposition of the field depends upon the style of bowling, whether it be fast, medium pace or slow, and the following diagrams will give a pretty clear idea of how the fielders are placed and what dangers the batsman has to guard against. A distance of 22 yards sepa rates the wickets, and by the scale the relative position of the players may easily be estimated. The field having been duly placed, the batsmen having taken their stand, with legs carefully pro tected by pads, and hands by ingenious rubber gloves, the umpire calls "play," and the bowler sends down his first ball. After five balls have been delivered from one wicket the umpire calls "over," and the whole field changes about till the position of the men bears the same re lation to the other wicket that it did to the one first bowled against. These
"overs" continue to be bowled from alter nate ends by different bowlers until the whole 11 players have tried their hand at the bat and been disposed of. Runs are made by the batsman driving the ball far enough away to give him time to change places with the other batter before the ball returns. Each change constitutes a run, and in matches in England it has sometimes happened that one batsman has made over 400 runs in this way. Six is the largest number of runs that can be made from a single hit, that being what is allowed when the ball is driven clear out of the grounds. The business of the bowler is to try in every possible way to knock down the wickets in front of which the batsman stands, or else to tempt him into hitting the ball up into the air so that it may be caught on the fly by one of the fielders. Besides being bowled or caught out, a batter may be "run out," i. e., have his wicket knocked down by the ball while he is busy making a run, or he may be "stumped out," which is to have the same thing happen when he in cautiously steps out of his ground to hit at an unusually tempting ball. The ball comes to the batter on the first bounce, and the bowler's skill is shown in varying the pitch, speed, and direction of the ball so that the batter may become bewildered and fail to defend his wickets. The best kind of bowling is what is known as a "bowling with a break," the peculiarity of which consists in that the ball after striking the ground does not continue straight on. hut swerves sharply to the right or left like a "cut" tennis ball, a kind of bowling, therefore, which bears much the same relation to the ordinary that "curve pitching" does to the old fashioned style. It is not easy to acquire, and few have the art in perfection. In the United States the two chief homes of cricket are in Philadelphia and Boston, although there are good clubs in New York, Detroit, and elsewhere, and also at some of the larger colleges.