Have you ever played cricket?! Let’s discover five competitive cricket facts for kids.
The cricket ball has been around for quite some time. Back in the 16th century, the first cricket ball was invented and it was made from sheep’s wool. The first people to accidentally invent cricket were shepherds. To pass the time and keep themselves entertained, shepherds would make cricket balls out of the sheep’s wool and play cricket.
Cricket balls today are made of a cork centre with twine and covered in leather which is stitched on. A cricket ball is heavier and much harder than a baseball. The first cricket ball manufactured was by the Duke family. Duke and Son got a Royal Patent for their cricket balls from King George IV in 1775.
Cricket bats are made from willow, a type of wood that works great for cricket bats as it is a lighter wood. Light wood means the hitters can hit the ball more accurately. The original cricket bats used were also more curved unlike the straight cricket bats we see today. The bats were changed to be more straight as they learned the straight bat allowed hitters to hit the ball better.
A wicket is used in cricket. It is a strange word isn’t it! A wicket is made up of three sticks known as stumps which are stuck into the ground. Two small sticks known as bails are balanced on top. The hitters must try to hit the wicket to try and get out the batsmen. A wicket is said to be ‘put down’ when all five sticks, the stumps and the bails, hit the ground. During the game the fielding team must try and hit 10 wickets. Wow, that is a lot of wickets!
Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world with football taking first place of course. Cricket has over 2.5 billion fans all over the world. Cricket is most popular in England, India, Pakistan and Australia. The first Cricket World Cup was held in England in 1975 with 8 teams competing. The West Indies Cricket team won the first ever Cricket World Cup, beating Australia’s Cricket team in the final.
The aim of the game in cricket is that the team that has the most runs wins. A run is when a player runs one full length of the pitch. But how do you get more runs? The batsmen have 10 wickets, they must try and get as many runs as they can before all 10 wickets are hit down by the fielding team. Every time the wicket is hit a batsman is out of the game. That sounds like a lot of running to me! Can you see some similarities between baseball and cricket?
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about cricket as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic this sport is, you can move on to learn about other sports and activities like: Table Tennis, Super Bowl, Football World Cup and Olympic Games.
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