Cricket is ostensibly a simple sport, played using a bat and a ball, by 2 teams of 11 players each. This is how Wikipedia explains a game: “One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the runs scored by the batting team. A run is scored by the striking batsman hitting the ball with his bat, running to the opposite end of the pitch and touching the crease there without being dismissed. The teams switch between batting and fielding at the end of an innings.” The immense popularity of the sport is apparent in the fan following at all levels – whether it is for the national side or professional leagues or even for small kids playing cricket on the streets with rules adapted to work around the limitations of resources and space.
Cricket is a truly unique game, in that, it is a blend of individual and team sporting skills.While each team is united in trying to defeat the opposing team, each of the batsmen, bowlers and fielders are battling it out in the middle, in their own inimitable styles. This unique nature of the sport makes it second only to football in popularity ratings all over the world. When a cricket series is being played in any corner of the earth, it is fair to say that a huge chunk of the world’s population would be brought together cheering for their favorite teams. While there is plenty of live coverage on television for these fans, those who cannot watch the matches live, will have to make do with cricket highlights or in other cases resort to news articles.The impact that cricket has had on generations of sports lovers all over the world can be credited to the sportsmanship associated with the game. The integrity of each player is also heavily scrutinized apart from the way they play the game. Moreover the game itself has evolved over the years, with shorter, faster-paced formats augmenting the longer version of the game to accommodate the current lifestyle of most of the fan base worldwide. Whatever the format of the game played, cricket news is the most sought after news item whether in newspapers or the internet, and each has its set of die-hard fans. To the uninitiated, Test Cricket is the long format of the game played over five days and is considered the highest standard of the game, while One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 are versions of Limited Overs Cricket. It is a matter of great prestige for the nations that have international cricket teams to win the Cricket ODI World Cup that is held once every 4 years by the highest cricketing authority, the International Cricket Council (ICC). It is not an exaggeration to say that in many parts of the world, especially the Indian sub-continent, the West Indies, Southern Africa, Down Under and the British Isles, cricket has become a religion with a cult following.
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