Cricket as a game and its features

Cricket is a wonderful sport played for many centuries now. The history of cricket goes deeper than you think and dates back to several centuries. The game itself has undergone many revolutionary changes since its invention and evolved over the years in terms of equipments used as well as rules applied of enforced. The game is believed to have started in the countryside fields of England where initially under arm bowling was more prominent and scoop shaped bat was used to hit the ball. It is called as the Gentlemen's game.

There are even records to prove that King George too took some interest in the game. And ever since the game has undergone evolution through several stages and now we live in an era where three formats are being played. They are: tests, ODI's and Twenty20's.

In a game 22 players comprising of two different teams are involved while one side bats and other side bowls. Test matches comprises of five days of 90 over's each. Originally only test matches were played a century ago. Those games didn't have any specific time and teams used to play for completion by which sometimes games used to carry on even six or eight days. It was only during the later part of 19th century they introduced the five day format.

Apart from that the concept of over arm bowling took place only during 17th century. The evolution of One day games comprising of 50 overs took place only recently about four decades ago. That too when it began it was played for 60 over's and not 50. The same format was carried out in the 1975, 1979, 1983 world cups. And as of today a new format comprising of 20 over's per side is being played and already three world cups under T20 has been held.

The game can be quite hard on its participants. It is not an easy sport by any means. It requires a lot of physical strength for one person to stand out and playful quota of 50 over's and sustain injuries also at the same time and come back to field for another set of 50 over's. Getting injured is also quite common as you play the game with a hard cricket ball weighing five and a half oz which when bowled at around 100kmph can cause severe damage when got hit.

People have lost eye sight when getting hit in their eyes or even died under the worst-case scenario. We all know about the conspiracy filled body-line series where both nations were brought into political aspects. Thus, protection is very important for any individual who plays the sport. In terms of protective equipments you have cricket pads, wicket-keeping pads, cricket gloves and wicket-keeping gloves, thigh guards, abdominal guards, chest guards, helmet, cricket shoes including studs and spikes, cricket balls for bowling, skins for fielding. All these equipments do play a part and they should be of the highest quality to sustain all kinds of blows and not injure you. Thus, do your research before purchasing any of these equipments. You can also buy these equipments online.