Why Is Cricket The Second Most Popular Sport In The World?
What comes to your when you hear Cricket? Some remember World Cup that is played once in 4 years internationally by many Cricket playing countries across the world. Some remember the most recent hot thing called IPL with only 20 to play Twenty-20 matches. Some remember the veteran cricketers like Don Bradman, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gawaskar or the currently playing cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar who is the greatest batsman scoring the most centuries in One Day International (ODI) matches.
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Cricket was first originated in England as a bat and ball sport played by shepherds in 16th Century. Cricket has a long history. It became the national game or sport of England in 18th Century itself. As British Empire expanded across lot of countries in the 19th century this sport too had expanded. The magic happened that now it is now Australia that ranks first in ODI matches and India that ranks first in Test matches. England is nowhere close to these toppers but nevertheless still it is in the top five ranks.
Cricket Stadium Image resource
Cricket is a sport played with a ball and bat in a grass field where a flat field is present in the center called pitch. The bowlers throw the balls at the batsmen who then have to hit it to reach or cross the boundaries or make runs between two wicket bails at either end of the pitch while the ball is out. There are so many ways a batsmen can lose and also some ways the batsmen can make score (runs). The team that makes the most runs wins the game but the rules of Cricket are somewhat different in different types of Cricket matches like World Cup, One Day International Matches, Twenty-20 IPL Matches (Limited Overs Matches), National Championships, Indoor Cricket played within a country between different regional teams and more.
There are various rules and terms which are complex to the game compared to many other games yet these make the sport very thrilling. The batsmen may play different shots to make runs like making one to three runs, hitting fours with ball crossing the boundary, sixes with ball crossing the boundary without toughing ground, extras (wides, no ball, bye, leg byes), other strikes like defensive strokes, late cut, leg glance, hook, pull, on drive, off drive, square drive, cover drive, square cut etc. The bowlers or fielders as the non-batting team is called can score wickets in various complex ways ? when batsmen get bowled, caught, run out, stumped, leg before wicket, hit wicket, hit the ball twice, obstruct the field, handle the ball, or get timed out.
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Informally cricket is played on the streets by boys using sticks and rubber or tennis ball and using bricks or stones as wickets if not some more sticks! Cricket also requires lot of skills on the part of batsmen and bowlers and fielders as well. Cricketers need to be good athletes to perform well in this sport otherwise audience will get very angry. In India they even scare them not to come home. There are incidents where the houses of popular crickets who failed sometimes, were surrounded the angry fans!
Today Cricket has become the second most popular sport in the world second only to Football. The Cricket craze is high in Australia and India. India with its IPL (Indian Premier League) 2010 is becoming very popular worldwide so much that even Australian audiences are watching it live. It is broadcasted free air across the world. Now it is also available on Youtube for internet users. You can also play cricket game online for free but it is a stick cricket game.
Currently India, Australia, South Africa, England, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and New Zealand are the popular Cricket playing countries and are full members of International Cricket Council (ICC). Cricket is popular than other sports like Hockey, Base ball, Rugby and even Olympics.
People lined up to watch Cricket on TV in public outside a shop in India Image resource
Cricket is highly popular sport in India partly because other sports are not popular and also because even Indian national sport Hockey is not played well to make our name in the world sports arena. It is only Cricket where Indian cricketers are doing extremely well making India as the most popular Cricket playing country in the world. The audience too is very high in India spreading across all cities, towns and even villages. There is also a movie Lagan made around Cricket, England and few Indians who never played cricket before. Almost everyone in India likes Cricket, watches Cricket, plays Cricket and talks about Cricket. Today IPL is nothing but another way of making business out of this Cricket Craze. But IPL is also increasing the popularity of Cricket and India across the world.
References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket
2. http://www.theindianblogger.com/cricket/why-cricket-is-such-a-popular-game-in-india/
Written by Raju
Online content writer.
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