Zimbabwe national cricket team

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field, at the centre of which is a
22-yard (20-metre; 66-foot) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails (small sticks) balanced
on three stumps. Two players from the batting team, the striker and nonstriker, stand in front of either wicket
holding bats, while one player from the fielding team, the bowler, bowls the ball toward 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 of these exchanges. Runs are also scored
when the ball reaches the boundary of the field or when the ball is bowled illegally.

The fielding team tries to prevent runs from being scored by dismissing batters (so they are "out"). Means of
dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the striker's wicket and dislodges the bails, and by the
fielding side either catching the ball after it is hit by the bat but before it hits the ground, or hitting a wicket with
the ball before a batter can cross the crease line in front of the wicket. When ten batters have been dismissed,
the innings (playing phase) ends and the teams swap roles. Forms of cricket range from traditional Test matches
played over five days to the newer Twenty20 format (also known as T20), in which each team bats for a single
innings of 20 overs (each "over" being a set of 6 fair opportunities for the batting team to score) and the game
generally lasts three to four hours.

Traditionally, cricketers play in all-white kit, but in limited overs cricket, they wear club or team colours. In
addition to the basic kit, some players wear protective gear to prevent injury caused by the ball, which is a hard,
solid spheroid made of compressed leather with a slightly raised sewn seam enclosing a cork core layered with
tightly wound string.

The earliest known definite reference to cricket is to it being played in South East England in the mid-16th
century. It spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, with the first international matches in the
second half of the 19th century. The game's governing body is the International Cricket Council (ICC), which
has over 100 members, twelve of which are full members who play Test matches. The game's rules, the Laws of
Cricket, are maintained by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in London. The sport is followed primarily in
South Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Southern Africa, and the West Indies.[2]

Women's cricket, which is organised and played separately, has also achieved international standard.

The most successful side playing international cricket is Australia, which has won eight One Day International
trophies, including six World Cups, more than any other country, and has been the top-rated Test side more than
any other country.[citation needed]

History
Main article: History of cricket
Origins
Main article: History of cricket to 1725

A medieval "club ball" game involving an underarm bowl towards a batter. Ball catchers are shown positioning
themselves to catch a ball. Detail from the Canticles of Holy Mary, 13th century.
Cricket is one of many games in the "club ball" sphere that involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement.
Others include baseball (which shares many similarities with cricket, both belonging in the more specific
bat-and-ball games category[3]), golf, hockey, tennis, squash, badminton and table tennis.[4] In cricket's case, a
key difference is the existence of a solid target structure, the wicket (originally, it is thought, a "wicket gate"
through which sheep were herded), that the batter must defend.[5] The cricket historian Harry Altham identified
three "groups" of "club ball" games: the "hockey group", in which the ball is driven to and from between two
targets (the goals); the "golf group", in which the ball is driven towards an undefended target (the hole); and the
"cricket group", in which "the ball is aimed at a mark (the wicket) and driven away from it".[6]

It is generally believed that cricket originated as a children's game in the south-eastern counties of England,
sometime during the medieval period.[5] Although there are claims for prior dates, the earliest definite
reference to cricket being played comes from evidence given at a court case in Guildford in January 1597 (Old
Style, equating to January 1598 in the modern calendar). The case concerned ownership of a certain plot of
land, and the court heard the testimony of a 59-year-old coroner, John Derrick, who gave witness that:[7][8][9]

Being a scholler in the ffree schoole of Guldeford hee and diverse of his fellows did runne and play there at
creckett and other plaies.

Given Derrick's age, it was about half a century earlier when he was at school, and so it is certain that cricket
þÿwas being played c. 1550 by boys in Surrey.[9] The view that it was originally a children's game is reinforced
by Randle Cotgrave's 1611 English-French dictionary in which he defined the noun "crosse" as "the crooked
staff wherewith boys play at cricket", and the verb form "crosser" as "to play at cricket".[10][11]

One possible source for the sport's name is the Old English word "cryce" (or "cricc") meaning a crutch or staff.
In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick".[7] In Old French, the word
"criquet" seems to have meant a kind of club or stick.[12] Given the strong medieval trade connections between
south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name
may have been derived from the Middle Dutch (in use in Flanders at the time) "krick"(-e), meaning a stick
(crook).[12] Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word "krickstoel", meaning a long low stool used for
kneeling in church that resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket.[13] According to
Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch
phrase for hockey, "met de (krik ket)sen" ("with the stick chase").[14] Gillmeister has suggested that not only
the name but also the sport itself may be of Flemish origin.[14]