Single wicket cricket

Last updated

Single wicket cricket is a form of cricket played between two individuals, who take turns to bat and bowl against each other. [1] [2] The one bowling is assisted by a team of fielders, who remain as fielders at the change of innings. The winner is the one who scores more runs. There was considerable interest in single wicket during the middle part of the 18th century when it enjoyed top-class status.

Contents

Almost never seen professionally today, it is most often encountered in local cricket clubs, in which there are a number of knockout rounds leading to a final. The exact rules can vary according to local practice: for example, a player might be deducted runs for an out rather than ending his or her innings. An innings typically is limited to two or three overs. When single wicket was popular in the 18th century, however, there was no overs limitation, and a player's innings ended only on his dismissal.

In the BBC Radio 4 drama, The Archers, there is a regular Single Wicket competition.

History

Single wicket has known periods of huge success when it was more popular than the eleven-a-side version of cricket. This was especially so among gamblers at the Artillery Ground during the middle years of the 18th century. Star performers at the time included Robert Colchin, Stephen Dingate, Tom Faulkner and Thomas Waymark.

It was in a single-wicket match on 22–23 May 1775 that Surrey bowler Lumpy Stevens beat Hampshire batsman John Small three times with the ball going through the two stump wicket of the day. [3] As a result of Stevens' protests, the patrons agreed that a third stump should be added. [4]

Despite this famous match, single wicket experienced a lull during the Hambledon Era and in the early years of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), but its popularity soared again in the first half of the 19th century, when leading players like Alfred Mynn and Nicholas Felix took part in some significant matches. From about 1800 to the 1820s, single wicket matches were popular but riddled with gambling-related match fixing. [5]

With the rise of the All-England Eleven and a growing interest in county cricket, single wicket lapsed again and has rarely been seen at the highest level since 1850, despite a brief revival in the 1960s. [6] A single wicket competition called the Courage International Batsman of the Year was held at The Oval over two days in September 1979. The event was won by Clive Lloyd, who beat David Gower in the final. [7]

The 2020 Ultimate Kricket Challenge was a form of single wicket cricket, in which players competed in head-to-head matches. Runs were scored by hitting into zones; and each player was assisted by a wicket-keeper and one other fielder when they were bowling, as well as being allowed a substitute bowler for up to 7 balls in each 15 ball innings. The inaugural tournament was won by Rashid Khan, who defeated Andre Russell in the final. [8]

Alternative definition

In an 1831 issue of New Sporting Magazine, "single wicket" cricket was not a one-on-one competition, but was defined as cricket with fewer than five players per team. In this modified form, runs could only be scored by hitting the ball to an area forward of the wicket, halving the zone in which runs could be scored. Otherwise the rules were similar to ordinary cricket, which the publication referred to as "double wicket". [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fielding (cricket)</span> Collecting the ball to force dismissal

Fielding in the sport of cricket is the action of fielders in collecting the ball after it is struck by the striking batter, to limit the number of runs that the striker scores and/or to get a batter out by either catching a hit ball before it bounces, or by running out either batter before they can complete their current run. There are a number of recognised fielding positions and they can be categorised into the offside and leg side of the field. Fielding also involves trying to prevent the ball from making a boundary where four "runs" are awarded for reaching the perimeter and six for crossing it without touching the grass.

The Laws of Cricket is a code that specifies the rules of the game of cricket worldwide. The earliest known code was drafted in 1744. Since 1788, the code has been owned and maintained by the private Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in Lord's Cricket Ground, London. There are currently 42 Laws, which describe all aspects of how the game is to be played. MCC has re-coded the Laws six times, each with interim revisions that produce more than one edition. The most recent code, the seventh, was released in October 2017; its 3rd edition came into force on 1 October 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wicket-keeper</span> Fielding position in cricket

The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. The wicket-keeper is the only member of the fielding side permitted to wear gloves and external leg guards. The role of the keeper is governed by Law 27 and of the Laws of Cricket.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of cricket terms</span> Cricketing terminology

This is a general glossary of the terminology used in the sport of cricket. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Certain aspects of cricket terminology are explained in more detail in cricket statistics and the naming of fielding positions is explained at fielding (cricket).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Run (cricket)</span> Unit of scoring in cricket

In cricket, a run is the unit of scoring. The team with the most runs wins in many versions of the game, and always draws at worst, except for some results decided by the DLS method, which is used in rain-shortened limited-overs games when the two teams have had a different number of opportunities to score runs.

Cricket is a multi-faceted sport with different formats, depending on the standard of play, the desired level of formality, and the time available. One of the main differences is between matches limited by time in which the teams have two innings apiece, and those limited by number of overs in which they have a single innings each. The former, known as first-class cricket if played at the senior level, has a scheduled duration of three to five days ; the latter, known as limited overs cricket because each team bowls a limit of typically 50 overs, has a planned duration of one day only. A separate form of limited overs is Twenty20, originally designed so that the whole game could be played in a single evening, in which each team has an innings limited to twenty overs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scorer (cricket)</span> Recorder of runs, wickets, and overs

In cricket, a scorer is someone appointed to record all runs scored, all wickets taken and, where appropriate, the number of overs bowled. In professional games, in compliance with Law 3 of the Laws of Cricket, two scorers are appointed, most often one provided by each team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Lambert (cricketer, born 1779)</span> English cricketer (1779–1851)

William Lambert was an English professional cricketer who played for numerous teams between 1801 and 1817. He was born at Burstow in Surrey, and died at Nutfield, Surrey. A right-handed batting all-rounder, he is widely recognised as one of the greatest batters of cricket's underarm era. Using an underarm action, he bowled pitched deliveries at a slow pace. He generally fielded in close catching positions, mostly at slip and often played as wicket-keeper.

In the 1773 English cricket season, there was a downturn in the fortunes of the Hambledon Club as their Hampshire team lost every match they are known to have played, and some of their defeats were heavy. Their poor results owed much to star bowler Thomas Brett having been injured. Three other county teams were active: Kent, Middlesex and Surrey. Teams called England took part in five matches, all against Hampshire, and won all five.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cricket</span> Bat-and-ball game

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game that is played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 22-yard (20-metre) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. Two players from the batting team stand in front of either wicket, with one player from the fielding team bowling the ball towards the striker's wicket from the opposite end of the pitch. The striker's goal is to hit the bowled ball and then switch places with the nonstriker, with the batting team scoring one run for each exchange. Runs are also scored when the ball reaches or crosses the boundary of the field or when the ball is bowled illegally.

References

  1. ↑ Whatever happened to single-wicket cricket?, Jon Hotten, ESPNcricinfo, 23 Sep 2016
  2. ↑ 1963: Revival of single-wicket cricket, Abhishek Mukherjee, Cricket County, May 18 2016
  3. ↑ "The origins of cricket jargon". BBC Bitesize. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  4. ↑ Arthur Haygarth, Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744–1826), Lillywhite, 1862.
  5. ↑ Martin Williamson (July 17, 2004). "Match-fixing: no new phenomenon".
  6. ↑ Martin Williamson (April 17, 2008). "Chasing the bucks". CricInfo magazine.
  7. ↑ Norman Preston, ed. (1980). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1980. Macdonald & Jane's. p. 361. ISBN   0362020035.
  8. ↑ Gaur, Akshat (8 January 2021). "Rashid Khan shows his dancing moves after winning Ultimate Kricket Challenge". The Cricket Times. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  9. ↑ New Sporting Magazine. Baldwin & Cradock. 1831. pp.  298 . Retrieved 11 February 2018.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.