Cricket 🏏

1. Adelaide Strikers
2. The Brisbane Heat
3. Hobart Hurricanes
4. Melbourne Renegades
5. Melbourne Stars
6. Perth Scorchers
7. Sydney Sixers
8. Sydney Thunder

Cricket is played between two teams made up of eleven players each. There is a reserved player called the ‘twelfth man’ who is used if another player is injured during the game. The Twelfth man is not allowed to bowl, bat, wicket keep or captain the team, his sole purpose is to act as a substitute fielder. There are two umpires in place during games on field, who are responsible for making decisions and notifying the scorers of those decisions. There is also a third umpire off field who is in charge of video decisions. This occurs when the call is too close for the on field umpires and they refer to the third umpire who reviews slow motion replays to make a decision. 

GAME STRUCTURE:

Cricket is a game that spans over two innings. This essentially means that one team needs to bowl the other team out twice and score more runs than the opposing team to win the match. In test cricket there is no limit between the innings length. Before the game begins an official will toss a coin. The captain who guesses the correct side of the coin will then choose if they want to bat or field first. The aim of the batting team is to score runs while the aim of the fielding team is to bowl ten people out and close the batting teams’ innings. 

HOW TO SCORE RUNS:

The aim of the batsmen is to score runs. One of the main rules is that for the batsmen to score runs, they must run to each other’s end of the pitch. The batsmen can run multiple runs per shot, and they can also score runs by hitting boundaries.

Additional Rules:

• A games must have two umpires stood at either end of the wicket.
• The umpires must count the number of balls in the over, make decisions on whether the batsmen is out after an appeal and also check that the bowler has bowled a legal delivery
• Test cricket is played over 5 days where each team has two innings
• The team with the most runs after each innings is the winner
• The fielding team must have one designated wicket keeper who is the only person allowed to wear pads and gloves on the field

The game of cricket is believed to have begun as early as the 13th century as a game where young boys would throw a rock (acting as the ball) at a tree stump or at the hurdle gate into a sheep pen. They used a shaped branch tree as the bat, which much resembled a modern hockey stick. Sources suggest that cricket was limited to the southern counties of England during the early 18th century, then popularity of the sport soon grew and expanded to London. In 1836, the first match of North counties vs South counties was played. Cricket expanded from there. 

History in Australia began over 210 years ago. The first recorded match in the country took place in Sydney in December 1803. By 1826 cricket clubs had started to be formed. By 1832, clubs began forming in Tasmania, and The Melbourne Cricket Club was then formed in 1838. South Australia began participating in club cricket in 1839, and from there cricket began to spread over all of Australia. In 1851, Victorians travelled to Tasmania and played the first intercolonial match. In the early years, matches were known as ‘intercolonial’, until Federation in 1901, where they changed to names as interstate matches. There were around 15,000 spectators at this match.

In 1868, a group of Aboriginal cricketers became the first Australian team to tour England. The team was captained by Charles Lawrence, and played 47 matches, winning 14, drawing 19 and losing 14. The 1876-77 season was notable for a match played between New South Wales and Victoria, and the touring Englishmen at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The match was played between 15-19 March and later became recognised as the first test match, won by Australia by 45 runs. The result of this match was seen by Australians and Englishmen as a reflection of the rising standard of Australian cricket. The era from the mid 1890s to the World War I was described as Australian crickets golden age. This era saw the emergence of players such as Monty Noble, Clem Hill and Victor Trumper, who were idolised by the Australian public. From the 1900s Australia began winning a large number of matches, which led the team to be how we know it as today.