question_answer

              Test cricket is a unique game in many ways. Discuss some of the ways in which it is different from other team games. How are the peculiarities of Test cricket shaped by its historical beginnings as a village game?

Answer:

(a) Unlike other modem team sports, a cricket match can carry on for five days and still end in a draw. A football match is generally over in an hour and half of playing time. Even baseball takes less time to complete nine innings than it takes to play a limited overs match, the shortened version of modem cricket. (b) Moreover while the length of the cricket pitch is specified the size and shape of the ground is not. (c) While most team sports like hockey and football lay down the dimensions of the playing area, cricket does not. Grounds can be oval like the Adelaide Oval or nearly circular like Chepauk in Chennai. (d) There is a historical reason for these differences. Originally cricket matches had no time limit and went on for as long as it took to bowl a side out twice. The pace of village life was slower and cricket rules were made before the Industrial Revolution. (e) In contrast, games that were codified after the industrial revolution, like hockey and football were strictly time-limited to fit the routine of an industrial city life. (f) Similarly the size of a cricket ground was not fixed due to its village origins. Cricket was originally played on the village commons, unfenced land that was public property. The size of the common varied from one village to another. Even after boundaries were incorporated into the laws of cricket, their distance from the wicket was not specified.