The International Appeal of Cricket

The Most Popular Spectator Sport in the British Commonwealth.

Feb 12, 2009

'Tis said British colonizers taking possession of some remote part of the world on behalf of their sovereign first planted a Union Jack - and then set up a cricket pitch!

“If you look at the diverse nations that make up the British Commonwealth,” Sri Lanka’s late prime minister Dudley Senanayake was fond of saying, “you will find that they have only two things in common - the ability to communicate in English and familiarity with the game of cricket.”

Game of Empire

Although these days the English spoken in Britain’s former colonies that now make up the British Commonwealth of Nations is spoken with different accents and different idioms, the nearly two thousand million folk in this vast grouping of nations – whether they live in Australia, Barbados, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Zimbabwe – still understand terms like maiden overs, leg-byes, silly mid-offs and no balls! Their ability to communicate in impeccable English may not be what it was in the days when the leaders of these nations – like Sri Lanka’s Senanayake, India’s Nehru and Pakistan’s Bhutto were all educated at Oxford and Cambridge – but anyone who understands the difference between a googly, a chinaman, a full toss and a doosra, is on the same wavelength as millions of cricket fans all over the Anglophone world. It would be true to say that this Game of Empire, with its peculiar language and culture, has certainly outlived the British Empire and moved beyond a boundary.

Although it is known that cricket was certainly being played in 14th century England and was well established by the time of the Tudors (1485-1603), its origins are lost in the mists of time.

During the colonial era, the game was carried across the oceans to British settlements all over the world such as the Falkland Islands and Hong Kong, to the vast subcontinent of India and and the myriad islands of the Carribbean. Today, these ex-colonies - particularly South Africa and India - are rated among the top cricket playing nations of the world, having displaced their former colonial masters who taught them the game.

The first international games recorded were when a team of Australian aborigines toured England in 1868. The records show that the team led by Charles Lawrence won 14 games, lost 14 and drew 19.

The first officially recognised international game (termed a Test Match) was played between England and Australia in 1877 in Melbourne, when the Australians defeated a visiting English team led by James Lillywhite. Following this, the two nations have played a regular series of Test Matches about every two years, competing alternately in England and Australia for a trophy called ‘The Ashes’ in what has become one of the world’s most famous sporting competitions.

The first Indian to play for England was Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, a brilliant player who later on became Jam Sahib (Prince) of Nawanagar. Earlier in the 20th century two other Indian princes - K.S.Duleepsinhji and the Nawab of Pataudi - also played for England while studying at university there. Interestingly, all three made centuries on their first international appearance!

And it is not well known that the famous Douglas Jardine, England’s captain who managed to curtail his famous Australian opposite number Don Bradman using methods that were more foul than fair, was in fact a third generation Indian. Although his genes and ancestors came from England, he (as was his father) was born in India and grew up in Bombay. It was Jardine who introduced bodyline bowling into test cricket - aiming to intimidate the man rather than the wickets, in a manner that in those times was considered ‘not cricket’ but has now been perfected to a fine art by fiery fast bowlers from Antigua to South Africa.

Today, the classic game of cricket, termed a Test match and spanning five days, is giving way to faster forms of the game –like the One Day or Limited Overs Cricket match (where each team is limited to facing 300 balls) and the faster Twenty-Twenty version where each team faces only 120 balls.

But in whatever form it is played, cricket remains a most popular spectator sport with a truly global following of fans.

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