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 (the striker and nonstriker) stand in front of either wicket holding bats, with one player from the fielding team (the bowler) 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 with the bat 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.
William Harold PonsfordMBE (19 October 1900 – 6 April 1991) was an Australian cricketer. Usually playing as an opening batsman, he formed a successful and long-lived partnershipopening the batting for Victoria and Australia with Bill Woodfull, his friend and state and national captain. Ponsford is the only player to twice break the world record for the highest individual score in first-class cricket; Ponsford and Brian Lara are the only cricketers to twice score 400 runs in an innings. Ponsford holds the Australian record for a partnership in Test cricket, set in 1934 in combination with Don Bradman (451 for 2nd wicket)—the man who broke many of Ponsford's other individual records. In fact, he along with Bradman set the record for the highest partnership ever for any wicket in Test cricket history when playing on away soil (451 runs for the second wicket)
Despite being heavily built, Ponsford was quick on his feet and renowned as one of the finest ever players of spin bowling. His bat, much heavier than the norm and nicknamed "Big Bertha", allowed him to drive powerfully and he possessed a strong cut shot. However, critics questioned his ability against fast bowling, and the hostile short-pitched English bowling in the Bodyline series of 1932–33 was a contributing factor in his early retirement from cricket a year and a half later. Ponsford also represented his state and country in baseball, and credited the sport with improving his cricketing skills. (Full article...)
Gavaskar has scored the third-highest number of centuries in Tests for India.
Sunil Gavaskar is a former international cricketer who represented and captained the Indian cricket team. In a career spanning over 16 years he made 35 centuries (100 or more runs) at the international level. Described as one of the greatest opening batsmen in cricket history, Gavaskar played 125 Test matches and scored 10,122 runs. He was the first batsman to score 10,000 Test runs and held the record for most runs until Allan Border surpassed it. Gavaskar's record of 34 Test centuries stood for almost two decades before Tendulkar surpassed it in December 2005. He was named the Indian Cricket Cricketer of the Year in 1971 and as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1980. In February 2012, the International Cricket Council (ICC) inducted him into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. As of 2012, he is the third-highest run scorer for India in Test cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
Making his Test debut against the West Indies in March 1971, Gavaskar scored his first century in the third Test of the same series. In the final Test at Port of Spain he scored centuries in both innings of the match with scores of 124 and 220, becoming the second Indian player to perform the feat. He became the first player to score two centuries in a Test match for the third time, when he made 107 and 182 not out in a match against the West Indies in December 1978. Gavaskar's highest Test score of 236 not out came against the West Indies at Chennai in 1983, an Indian record at that time. He has scored 150 or more runs in a Test match innings on twelve occasions. Gavaskar was most successful against the West Indies and Australia scoring 13 and 8 centuries respectively. (Full article...)
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Mahela Jayawardene holds several batting and fielding test cricket records for Sri Lanka. Test cricket is the oldest form of cricket played at international level. A Test match takes place over a period of five days, and is played by teams representing Full Member nations of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Sri Lanka obtained Full Member status of the ICC in 1981, becoming the eighth nation eligible to play Test cricket. The Sri Lanka national cricket team played their first Test match on 17 February 1982, against England, and recorded their first victory on 6 September 1985, in a match against India. Since then, they have played nearly 300 matches, against every other Test-playing nation. Sri Lanka holds the world record for the highest team score, which was established against India in 1997. The highest partnership in Test cricket was also established by two Sri Lankan batsmen; Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. Sri Lankan players also hold the highest partnership scores for the second and third wickets.
Top order batsman and former captain Kumar Sangakkara holds several Sri Lankan batting records as he has scored the most runs for Sri Lanka in Test cricket. He is also the record holder for the highest number of centuries as well as the highest number of half-centuries. The 374 made by Mahela Jayawardene against South Africa in 2006 is the highest individual score by a Sri Lankan cricketer, surpassing the previous best of 340 by Sanath Jayasuriya, which was established in 1997. It is also the fourth-highest individual score in Test cricket. Jayawardene, Jayasuriya and Kumar Sangakkara [319] are the only Sri Lankan players who have scored triple centuries. (Full article...)
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In cricket, a batsman reaches a triple century if they score 300 or more runs in a single innings. The Ranji Trophy is the premier first-class cricket championship played in India. Conducted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, it was founded in 1934 as "The Cricket Championship of India". , a triple century has been scored on 46 occasions by 41 different batsmen in the Ranji Trophy.
Bardsley c.1909 In cricket, a player is said to have scored a century when he scores 100 or more runs in a single innings. Test cricket, the longest version of the game, involves two innings per side in a match. An individual scoring centuries in each innings of a Test match is considered a "milestone" by critics. Players from all teams that are full members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) except Ireland and Afghanistan have scored centuries in both innings of a Test.
The first player to score centuries in both innings of a Test match was Warren Bardsley of Australia, who made 136 and 130 against England in August 1909. Since then, the feat has been accomplished by 77 players on 94 occasions . India'sSunil Gavaskar and Australians Ricky Ponting and David Warner are the only cricketers who have scored two centuries in a match on three occasions, while 11 players have achieved the feat twice. England's Graham Gooch has the highest aggregate in a match while scoring centuries in both the innings; his combined tally of 456 runs in the match—333 in the first and 123 in the second innings—was entered into The Guinness Book of Records as "Most runs scored by a player in a Test match (male)". His feat of scoring a triple century and a century was subsequently equalled, though with lower scores, by Kumar Sangakkara: while six other players have scored a double century and a single century in the match. Allan Border is the only player to have scored 150 (or more) in each innings. Sri Lanka's Aravinda de Silva is the only player to remain not out in both innings. (Full article...)
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Marcus Trescothick, Somerset's leading List A and second-highest first-class run-scorer Somerset County Cricket Club are an English cricket club based in Taunton, Somerset. The club was founded in 1875 after a match between "Gentlemen of Somerset" and "Gentlemen of Devon" in Sidmouth, Devon. Somerset played their first undisputedfirst-class cricket match in 1882 against Lancashire. After missing the first season of the official County Championship, Somerset was admitted for the second in 1891, and have participated in the competition ever since. The club have played one-day cricket since its introduction to the English game in 1963, winning their first trophy in the 1979 Gillette Cup. All players who have played in 100 first-class or List A cricket matches are listed below. Only four players have made over 100 appearances in Twenty20 cricket for Somerset, James Hildreth currently holds the record for the most matches in the format for the club, having made 205 appearances.
Brian Langford holds the record for the greatest number of first-class appearances for Somerset. Between 1953 and 1974 the right-arm off break bowler played 504 times for the club. Only three other players have made more than 400 appearances for Somerset, and no-one has reached the milestone since Langford. Jack White, one of the three, is the club's leading wicket-taker in first-class cricket, claiming 2,165 dismissals for the county between 1909 and 1937. Harold Gimblett's tally of 21,142 first-class runs is the most by a Somerset cricketer, over 1,000 more than the next, Marcus Trescothick. (Full article...)
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The County Ground, Hove, which was first used in 1872, and has hosted the majority of Sussex's matches.
Sussex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 member clubs of the English County Championship, representing the historic county of Sussex. Although Sussex representative sides had been playing cricket since the mid-eighteenth century and had also played first-class cricket matches since 1815, the County Cricket Club was established on 1 March 1839. They have played first-class matches since 1839, List A matches since 1963, and Twenty20 matches since 2003.
Unlike most professional sports, in which a team usually has a single fixed home ground, county cricket clubs have traditionally used different grounds in various towns and cities within the county for home matches, although the use of minor "out grounds" away from the club's main headquarters has diminished since the 1980s. In total, Sussex have played first-class, List A and Twenty20 cricket at 17 different grounds across the county. (Full article...)
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As of April 2024, 17 male players have played Test cricket for two nations, 16 have played One Day International (ODI) cricket for two teams, and 19 have played Twenty20 International (T20I) matches for two teams, and five have played for two teams in different international formats.
In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, players who had represented two international teams had been born in one country and moved to another with family. There were no clear rules on which nation one could represent, so switching was possible. More recently, citizenship has become the defining attribute as to whether a player can represent more than one international team. The eligibility policy set by the International Cricket Council (ICC) states that a cricketer who has played for a Full Member side must wait three years since their last match before playing for an Associate team. However, if a cricketer plays for an Associate team first, they can switch to a Full Member team the next day. (Full article...)
India played their first Women's One Day International cricket (WODI) match against England in the 1978 World Cup, which they hosted. They finished at the bottom of the table as they lost the remaining two games of the group stage. In the 1982 World Cup, they won their first ever WODI match when they beat the International XI by 79 runs at McLean Park, Napier. India's first overseas WODI series win came at the 1994–95 New Zealand Women's Centenary Tournament. They won the WODI series during their tour 1999 of England. They were the runner-up at the 2005 and the 2017World Cup tournaments. , they have played 301 WODIs against twelve different opponents, and have the fourth highest number of victories (164) for any team in the format; They have recorded 81 wins and have been the fifth most successful team in the T20 format. Since their first Women's Twenty20 International (WT20I) against England in August 2006, India have played 151 matches. They have been most successful against Bangladesh with eleven wins against them. They were among the semi-finalists in the 2009 and 2010ICC Women's World Twenty20 tournaments. (Full article...)
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Pakistan's Umar Gul was the first player to take a five-wicket haul in a T20I match.
A five-wicket haul (also known as a "five-for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded as a notable achievement, especially in the Twenty20 format, as bowlers can bowl no more than four overs in an innings. The first five-wicket haul in a T20I match was taken by Pakistan's Umar Gul while playing against New Zealand at The Oval during the 2009 ICC World Twenty20. 18 players have taken five-wicket haul twice. (Full article...)
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Kumar Sangakkara was the captain of the Deccan Chargers during their last season.
The Hyderabad Deccan Chargers (often abbreviated as DC) was a franchise cricket team based in Hyderabad, Telangana, that competed in the Indian Premier League (IPL) from 2008 to 2012. The team was owned by Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited who won the bid for the Hyderabad franchise at US$107 million. VVS Laxman and Robin Singh were appointed as the captain and the coach for their first season in 2008. After finishing last in that season, the DC sacked their coach and removed their captain and replaced them with Darren Lehmann and Adam Gilchrist under whom they won their only IPL title in 2009, when they defeated the Royal Challengers Bangalore by six runs in the final. They reached the semi-finals again in 2010 but failed to reach past the group stages before the team was folded in 2012. They qualified for the Champions League Twenty20 only once, for the 2009 season, but failed to advance past the group stage. Lehmann remained as the coach for the DC but they were forced to replace Gilchrist with Kumar Sangakkara in 2011 after they lost former to the Kings XI Punjab in the 2011 auction. Sangakkara remained as the captain until the middle of the 2012 season before he was replaced by Cameron White following the poor performances. Sangakkara later returned as captain as the move did not yield the desired results for the Deccan Chargers.
On 15 September 2012, the Deccan Chargers' IPL contract was terminated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which was concerned about overdue payments to the players. The Hyderabad franchise was later acquired by the Sun TV Network for ₹85.05 crore (US$10 million) per year in a bid which also retained 20 players. (Full article...)
Sangakkara made his Test debut against South Africa in July 2000. He scored his maiden Test century in 2001, against India, and his first double-century during the 2002 Asian Test Championship final against Pakistan. Sangakkara's highest score in Test cricket is 319, which he scored against Bangladesh in 2014. During his innings of 287 against South Africa in 2006, he and Mahela Jayawardene set a new world record of 624 runs for the highest partnership for any wicket in Test or first-class cricket. In the following year, he scored back-to-back double-centuries against Bangladesh, the fifth instance of successive double-centuries in Test cricket. He has scored 200 or more runs in a Test match on eleven occasions, surpassing Brian Lara, who has scored 200 or more runs in a Test match on nine occasions; only Donald Bradman (12 double-centuries) has done so more often. He became the ninth batsman and second Sri Lankan to score centuries against all Test-playing nations in December 2007, when he scored 152 against England. He was appointed captain of the Sri Lanka team in March 2009, following the resignation of Mahela Jayawardene, and the first of his seven Test centuries as captain came against Pakistan in July of the same year. Sangakkara has the second-highest batting average—69.60 per innings—for a captain who scored a minimum of 1,500 runs. (Full article...)
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South Africa women at Taunton, 2009 ICC Women's World Twenty20 A women's Test match is an international four-innings cricket match held over a maximum of four days between two of the leading cricketing nations. Women's cricket was played in South Africa fairly regularly throughout the beginning of the 20th century, but died out during the Second World War. It was revived in 1949 by a group of enthusiasts, and in 1951 Netta Rheinberg, on behalf of the Women's Cricket Association, suggested that a South Africa Women's Cricket Association be formed, and encouraged the possibility that a series of matches could be played between the two associations. The South Africa & Rhodesian Women's Cricket Association (SA&RWCA) was officially formed in 1952. At their annual general meeting in January 1955, the SA&RWCA accepted an invitation from the Women's Cricket Association to join an International Women's Cricket Council that, in addition to South Africa, included England, Australia and New Zealand. They also agreed that international matches would be played between the four nations. In 1959, arrangements were made for the first international women's cricket tour of South Africa, as they would play host to the English team in 1960.
The first Test involving South Africa women was held at St George's Park, Port Elizabeth, the same venue as the one for first men's Test match in the country in 1889, and ended in a draw. South Africa then played a subsequent series against New Zealand in 1971–72. As part of the international campaign against apartheid, the Commonwealth of Nations signed the Gleneagles Agreement in 1977, excluding South Africa from competing in international sporting events. Because of this exclusion, they did not play another Test until hosting India in 2001–02, before facing England again in 2003, the Netherlands in 2007, India in 2014 and most recently England in 2022. (Full article...)
Amla made his Test debut against India at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, in 2004. His first century came two years later against New Zealand at the Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town. His score of 311 not out, against England at The Oval, London, in 2012, is the only triple century by a South African batsman in Test cricket. Amla has scored Test centuries at sixteen cricket grounds, including ten at venues outside South Africa. In Tests, he has scored centuries against eight different opponents, and has the most centuries (six) against England. , Amla has the second-highest number of centuries for South Africa in Tests. (Full article...)
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Glenn McGrath Glenn McGrath, a retired international Australiancricketer, took a number of five-wicket hauls during his career. In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded as a notable achievement, and fewer than 40 bowlers have taken more than 15 five-wicket hauls at international level in their cricketing careers.
McGrath made his Test debut in November 1993, against New Zealand, but it was not until March 1995 that he took his first five-wicket haul in Australia's victory over the West Indies in Barbados; his performance earned him the man of the match award. He followed that three weeks later with six wickets in a defeat in Trinidad. McGrath took 10 of his 29 Test five-wicket hauls in The Ashes (the traditional name for Test matches between Australia and England). During the 1997 Ashes series, McGrath "humiliated" England, taking eight wickets in a single innings at Lord's and restricting England to 77, the lowest total in any Test match at the ground since 1888. A month later, he dismissed seven English batsmen in the first innings at The Oval but despite these performances, Australia did not win either Test match. The 2001 Ashes series saw McGrath make four five-wicket hauls in consecutive matches. He twice took five-wicket hauls in both innings of a Test match – in March 1999 he dismissed five West Indian batsmen in each innings of the first Test of the Frank Worrell Trophy; in the following year, he took ten wickets against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground. (Full article...)
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Greg Chappell scored five of his twenty-four Test cricket centuries at Brisbane Cricket Ground. Greg Chappell is a former international cricketer who represented Australia in 161 matches between 1970 and 1984. He was described by the cricket journalist Gideon Haigh as "the outstanding Australian batsman of his generation", while fellow journalist Christopher Martin-Jenkins said he was capable of "[mastering] even the best bowlers in the worst batting conditions." A right-handed top-order batsman, he scored 27 centuries (100 or more runs in a single innings) in international cricket – 24 in Test cricket and 3 in One Day Internationals (ODIs). He ranks 9th amongst Australian batsmen in terms of international centuries, and joint 41st overall, though he played fewer matches than all but Don Bradman above him.
Chappell played his first Test match in December 1970, and became the tenth Australian to score a century on Test debut, accumulating 108 runs against England in the second Test of the 1970–71 Ashes series. In 1974, he scored centuries in both innings of a match against New Zealand; his brother, Ian also achieved the feat in the match. In the first innings against New Zealand, Chappell recorded his highest score in Test cricket, 247 not out. He scored two centuries in a Test again late the following year against the West Indies, during his first match as captain of Australia. He scored three further double centuries in Test matches, two against Pakistan, and one against India, all in 1980 or 1981. During the fifth Test of the 1983–84 series against Pakistan, Chappell announced that he would retire at the end of the match; during the fourth day he scored his final century in international cricket. In doing so, Chappell became one of only four players to score centuries in both their first and last Test match. (Full article...)
Image 4In men's cricket the ball must weigh between 5.5 and 5.75 ounces (155.9 and 163 g) and measure between 8.81 and 9 in (22.4 and 22.9 cm) in circumference. (from Laws of Cricket)
Image 5A 1793 American depiction of "wicket" being played in front of Dartmouth College. Wicket likely came to North America in the late 17th century. (from History of cricket)
Image 6Afghan soldiers playing cricket. Afghan refugees in Pakistan brought the sport back to Afghanistan, and it is now one of the most popular sports in the country. (from History of cricket)
Image 9Broadhalfpenny Down, the location of the first First Class match in 1772 is still played on today (from History of cricket)
Image 10A wicket consists of three stumps, upright wooden poles that are hammered into the ground, topped with two wooden crosspieces, known as the bails. (from Laws of Cricket)
Image 11 First Grand Match of Cricket Played by Members of the Royal Amateur Society on Hampton Court Green, August 3rd, 1836 (from History of cricket)
Image 12Photograph of Miss Lily Poulett-Harris, founding mother of women's cricket in Australia. (from History of women's cricket)
Image 13A Game of Cricket at The Royal Academy Club in Marylebone Fields, now Regent's Park, depiction by unknown artist, c. 1790–1799 (from History of cricket)
Image 14Plaquita, a Dominican street version of cricket. The Dominican Republic was first introduced to cricket through mid-18th century British contact, but switched to baseball after the 1916 American occupation. (from History of cricket)
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the international governing body of cricket, and produces team rankings for the various forms of cricket played internationally.
Test cricket is the longest form of cricket, played up to a maximum of five days with two innings per side.
Matches is the number of matches played in the 12–24 months since the May before last, plus half the number in the 24 months before that. See points calculations for more details.