Richard Hadlee
Sir Richard John Hadlee is a New Zealand former cricketer, regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers and all-rounders in cricketing history. Hadlee was knighted in 1990 for services to cricket, he is a former chairman of the New Zealand board of selectors. In December 2002, he was chosen by Wisden as the second greatest Test bowler of all time. In March 2009, Hadlee was commemorated as one of the Twelve Local Heroes, a bronze bust of him was unveiled outside the Christchurch Arts Centre. On 3 April 2009, Sir Richard Hadlee was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. Sir Richard is the most prominent member of the Hadlee cricket playing family. Richard is the son of Walter Hadlee, the brother of Dayle and Barry Hadlee, his former wife Karen played international cricket for New Zealand. He was born on 3 July 1951 at Christchurch. In June 2018, Hadlee underwent tumor removal surgery. A bowling all-rounder, in an 86-Test career he took 431 wickets, was the first bowler to pass 400 wickets, with an average of 22.29, made 3124 Test runs at 27.16, including two centuries and 15 fifties.
Hadlee is rated by many experts as the greatest exponent of bowling with the new ball. He was the original Sultan of Swing. Hadlee was seen as one of the finest fast bowlers of his time, despite the contemporaneous presence of Dennis Lillee, Imran Khan, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Kapil Dev, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Malcolm Marshall among others; as one of the four top all rounders of his time, the others being Imran Khan, Kapil Dev and Ian Botham, Hadlee had the best bowling average of the four, but the lowest batting average. Born in Christchurch, Hadlee made his first class debut for Canterbury in 1971/72 and his test match debut in 1973 – on both occasions, his first delivery was dispatched to the boundary. Hadlee was an inconsistent performer at test level for several years. In 1978, Hadlee helped New Zealand to a historic first win over England by taking 6 for 26 in England's second innings, bowling the visitors out for 64 chasing a target of 137. In 1979/80, New Zealand faced the West Indies in a home test series at a time when the West Indies were a formidable world cricket power.
In the first test in Dunedin New Zealand achieved a shock 1-wicket win, helped by Hadlee's 11 wickets in the game. In the second test, Hadlee scored his maiden test century, helping New Zealand draw the test and win the series 1–0; the result was the start of a 12-year unbeaten home record for New Zealand in test match series. Hadlee was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1980 Queen's Birthday Honours. A tour to England in 1983 saw New Zealand register their first test win on English soil, at Headingley; the match was remarkable for Hadlee's match return of 0 for 89, a unusual occurrence in a New Zealand victory during his career. England won the 4 test series 3–1. In the return test series in New Zealand in 1984, New Zealand completed a remarkable three-day innings victory over England at Christchurch, in which England were dismissed for less than 100 in both of their innings; the match was notable for Hadlee's superb all-round performance – he took 8 wickets in the match, scored a rapid-fire 99 in New Zealand's only innings.
These efforts led him to achieve the number 1 ranking in ICC Test Bowling Rankings for the year 1984. 1985/86 was the beginning of a period in which Hadlee developed from a good fast bowler to a great one. In New Zealand's tour to Australia, an outstanding all-round performance helped destroy the home team in the first test at Brisbane, beginning with a personal test best 9 for 52 in Australia's first innings. A batting effort of 54 combined with 6 more wickets in Australia's second innings, helped New Zealand to a crushing innings victory. Hadlee followed this up with 7 wickets in a loss in the second test, 11 wickets in a New Zealand victory in the third test, giving his country their first series win on Australian soil and a personal haul of 33 wickets in 3 tests. In the first test of the return series in New Zealand, Hadlee took his 300th test wicket by trapping Australian captain Allan Border LBW; the series was won 1–0 by New Zealand by way of a victory in the third test at Eden Park. In 1986 Hadlee helped New Zealand to a 1–0 series win in England, their first over that country in England.
Hadlee's outstanding personal performance in the second test at Nottingham where he took 10 wickets and scored 68 in New Zealand's first innings powered his team to victory. In this test Hadlee a controversial character, added to this side of his reputation when he felled England wicketkeeper and Nottinghampshire teammate Bruce French with a nasty bouncer. During the New Zealand v West Indies test at Christchurch in March 1987, Hadlee and captain Jeremy Coney had a disagreement in the dressing room prior to the game, it progressed to not talking to each other on the field, communicating through John Wright at mid-on. In April 1987, New Zealand traveled to Sri Lanka, his 151 not out in the first test helped New Zealand to save the game.
New Zealand
New Zealand is a sovereign island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 2,000 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia and Tonga; because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal and plant life; the country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington. Sometime between 1250 and 1300, Polynesians settled in the islands that were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands.
In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire and in 1907 it became a dominion. Today, the majority of New Zealand's population of 4.9 million is of European descent. Reflecting this, New Zealand's culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers, with recent broadening arising from increased immigration; the official languages are English, Māori, NZ Sign Language, with English being dominant. A developed country, New Zealand ranks in international comparisons of national performance, such as quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic freedom. New Zealand underwent major economic changes during the 1980s, which transformed it from a protectionist to a liberalised free-trade economy; the service sector dominates the national economy, followed by the industrial sector, agriculture. Nationally, legislative authority is vested in an elected, unicameral Parliament, while executive political power is exercised by the Cabinet, led by the prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
Queen Elizabeth II is the country's monarch and is represented by a governor-general Dame Patsy Reddy. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes; the Realm of New Zealand includes Tokelau. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ASEAN Plus Six, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Community and the Pacific Islands Forum. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and named it Staten Land "in honour of the States General", he wrote, "it is possible that this land joins to the Staten Land but it is uncertain", referring to a landmass of the same name at the southern tip of South America, discovered by Jacob Le Maire in 1616. In 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand. Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand.
It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the whole country before the arrival of Europeans, with Aotearoa referring to just the North Island. Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North and South. In 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907 this was the accepted norm; the New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised, names and alternative names were formalised in 2013. This set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, South Island or Te Waipounamu. For each island, either its English or Māori name can be used. New Zealand was one of the last major landmasses settled by humans. Radiocarbon dating, evidence of deforestation and mitochondrial DNA variability within Māori populations suggest New Zealand was first settled by Eastern Polynesians between 1250 and 1300, concluding a long series of voyages through the southern Pacific islands.
Over the centuries that followed, these settlers developed a distinct culture now known as Māori. The population was divided into iwi and hapū who would sometimes cooperate, sometimes compete and sometimes fight against each other. At some point a group of Māori migrated to Rēkohu, now known as the Chatham Islands, where they developed their distinct Moriori culture; the Moriori population was all but wiped out between 1835 and 1862 because of Taranaki Māori invasion and enslavement in the 1830s, although European diseases contributed. In 1862 only 101 survived, the last known full-blooded Moriori died in 1933; the first Europeans known to have reached New Zeala
Clive Lloyd
Clive Hubert Lloyd is a former West Indies cricketer. In 1971 he was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year, he captained the West Indies between 1974 and 1985 and oversaw their rise to become the dominant Test-playing nation, a position, only relinquished in the latter half of the 1990s. He is one of the most successful Test captains of all time: during his captaincy the side had a run of 27 matches without defeat, which included 11 wins in succession, he was the first West Indian player to earn 100 international caps. Lloyd captained the West Indies in three World Cups, winning in 1975 and 1979 while losing the 1983 final to India. Lloyd was occasional medium-pace bowler. In his youth he was a strong cover point fielder, he wore his famous glasses as a result of being poked in the eye with a ruler. His Test match debut came in 1966. Lloyd scored 7,515 runs at Test level, at an average of 46.67. He hit 70 sixes in his Test career, the 14th highest number of any player, he played for his home nation of Guyana in West Indies domestic cricket, for Lancashire in England.
He is a cousin of spin bowler Lance Gibbs. Since retiring as a player, Lloyd has remained involved in cricket, managing the West Indies in the late 1990s, coaching and commentating, he was an ICC match referee from 2001–2006. In 1971–72 Lloyd suffered a back injury while playing for a Rest of the World team at the Adelaide Oval, he was fielding in the covers. He made an amazing effort to take the catch but it bounced out of his hands when he hit the ground awkwardly; when he went to get up, he felt a stabbing pain in his back and he was unable to move. He spent the next few weeks in an Adelaide hospital flat on his back. In the 1975 Cricket World Cup Final against Australia, the West Indies were deep in trouble at 3/50 when Lloyd strode to the crease, he duly made 102 from the only limited overs international century of his career. With Rohan Kanhai he added 149 for the West Indies to win by 17 runs. Play ended at 8:40pm London time and was the longest days' play at Lords. On 22 January 1985, Lloyd was made an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to the sport of cricket in relation to his outstanding and positive influence on the game in Australia.
In 2005, Lloyd offered his patronage to Major League Cricket for their inaugural Interstate Cricket Cup in the United States, to be named the Sir Clive Lloyd Cup. His son, Jason Clive Lloyd, is a goalkeeper for the Guyana national football team. In 2007, Lloyd's authorised biography, was published, it was written by the cricket journalist, Simon Lister
Bowling average
In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing, it is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers used alongside the economy rate and the strike rate to judge the overall performance of a bowler. When a bowler has taken only a small number of wickets, their bowling average can be artificially high or low, unstable, with further wickets taken or runs conceded resulting in large changes to their bowling average. Due to this, qualification restrictions are applied when determining which players have the best bowling averages. After applying these criteria, George Lohmann holds the record for the lowest average in Test cricket, having claimed 112 wickets at an average of 10.75 runs per wicket. A cricketer's bowling average is calculated by dividing the numbers of runs they have conceded by the number of wickets they have taken; the number of runs conceded by a bowler is determined as the total number of runs that the opposing side have scored while the bowler was bowling, excluding any byes, leg byes, or penalty runs.
The bowler receives credit for any wickets taken during their bowling that are either bowled, hit wicket, leg before wicket or stumped. B o w l i n g a v e r a g e = R u n s c o n c e d e d W i c k e t s t a k e n A number of flaws have been identified for the statistic, most notable among these the fact that a bowler who has taken no wickets can not have a bowling average, as dividing by zero does not give a result; the effect of this is that the bowling average can not distinguish between a bowler who has taken no wickets and conceded one run, a bowler who has taken no wickets and conceded one hundred runs. The bowling average does not tend to give a true reflection of the bowler's ability when the number of wickets they have taken is small in comparison to the number of runs they have conceded. In his paper proposing an alternative method of judging batsmen and bowlers, Paul van Staden gives an example of this: Suppose a bowler has bowled a total of 80 balls, conceded 60 runs and has taken only 2 wickets so that..
30. If the bowler takes a wicket with the next ball bowled 20. Due to this, when establishing records for bowling averages, qualification criteria are set. For Test cricket, the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack sets this as 75 wickets, while ESPNcricinfo requires 2,000 deliveries. Similar restrictions are set for one-day cricket. A number of factors other than purely the ability level of the bowler have an effect on a player's bowling average. Most significant among these are the different eras; the bowling average tables in Test and first-class cricket are headed by players who competed in the nineteenth century, a period when pitches were uncovered and some were so badly looked after that they had rocks on them. The bowlers competing in the Howa Bowl, a competition played in South African during the apartheid-era, restricted to non-white players, during which time, according to Vincent Barnes: "Most of the wickets we played on were underprepared. For me, as a bowler, it was great." Other factors which provided an advantage to bowlers in that era was the lack of significant safety equipment.
Other variations are caused by frequent matches against stronger or weaker opposition, changes in the laws of cricket and the length of matches. Due to the varying qualifying restrictions placed on the records by different statisticians, the record for the lowest career bowling average can be different from publication to publication. In Test cricket, George Lohmann is listed as having the superior average by each of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, ESPNcricinfo and CricketArchive. Though all three use different restrictions, Lohmann's average of 10.75 is considered the best. If no qualification criteria were applied at all, three players—Wilf Barber, A. N. Hornby and Bruce Murray—would tie for the best average, all having claimed just one wicket in Test matches, without conceding any runs, thus averaging zero. ESPNcricinfo list Betty Wilson as having the best Women's Test cricket average with 11.80, while CricketArchive accept Mary Spear's average of 5.78. In One Day Internationals, the varying criteria set by ESPNcricinfo and CricketArchive result in different players being listed as holding the record.
ESPNcricinfo has the stricter restriction, requiring 1,000 deliveries: by this measure, Joel Garner is the record-holder, having claimed his wickets at an average of 18.84. By CricketArchive's more relaxed requirement of 400 deliveries, John Snow leads the way, with an average of 16.57. In women's One Day International cricket, Caroline Barrs tops the CricketArchive list with an average of 9.52, but by ESPNcricinfo's stricter guidelines, the record is instead held by Gill Smith's 12.53. The record is again split for the two websites for Twenty20 International cricket. George O'Brien's average of 8.20 holds the record using those criteri
Captain (cricket)
The captain of a cricket team referred to as the skipper, is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of the other players. As in other sports, the captain is experienced and has good communication skills, is to be one of the most regular members of the team, as the captain has a say in team selection. Before the game the captains toss for innings. During the match the captain decides the team's batting order, who will bowl each over, where each fielder will be positioned. While the captain has the final say, decisions are collaborative. A captain's knowledge of the complexities of cricket strategy and tactics, shrewdness in the field, may contribute to the team's success. Due to the smaller coaching/management role played out by support staff, as well as the need for greater on-field decision-making, the captain of a cricket team shoulders more responsibility for results than team captains in other sports. Before the start of a match the home captain tosses a coin and the away captain calls heads or tails.
The captain who wins the toss bowl first. The decision depends on the condition of the pitch and whether it is to deteriorate, the weather conditions and the weather forecast; the decision depends on the relative strengths of the team's batting and bowling. For instance in Test Cricket, a side with only fast bowlers may choose to bowl first to try to take advantage of any early moisture in the pitch, knowing that it will be harder to take wickets in the match. A side with a weak opening batting pair may choose to bowl first in order to protect their batsmen; the captain decides where the fielders will stand, in consultation with the bowler and sometimes other senior players. The fielding positions will be dictated by the type of bowler, the batsman's batting style, the captain's assessment of the state of the match; the captain decides. If a batsman is seeking to dominate the current bowler, the captain may ask someone else to bowl. If the regular bowlers are not achieving the desired results, the captain may decide to use non-regular bowlers to attempt to unsettle the batsmen.
The captain may change the bowlers around to introduce variation, to prevent the batsmen getting "set". In limited overs cricket the captain additionally has to make certain that bowlers bowl no more than their allotted maximum number of overs, that experienced bowlers are available at the end of the batting side's innings, when the batsmen are looking to take risks to attack and score quickly. In the longer forms of cricket, when a new ball becomes available the captain decides whether to use it; when the team bats, the captain decides the batting order. In professional cricket the captain changes the established batting order only for exceptional reasons, because batsmen tend to specialise in batting at certain positions. However, in certain circumstances it may be in the team's interest to change the batting order. If quick runs are needed, a attacking batsman may be promoted up the order. A player who is'in form' may be promoted to a higher batting position, at the expense of a player who is'out of form'.
If a wicket falls near the end of a day's play if the light is failing, or if the bowlers seem confident, the captain may choose to send in a non-specialist batsman, referred to as a nightwatchman. If the nightwatchman does not get out before the end of that day's play the specialist batsman will have been protected, will not need to bat until the following day when conditions are to have improved. If the nightwatchman does get out, the cost of losing a late wicket will have been minimised, because the specialist batsman is still available to bat; the captain may declare the team's innings closed at any time, but only does so as an attacking ploy, for instance if the captain thinks the team has enough runs to win the match, or if a sudden change in conditions has made it advantageous to bowl rather than bat. In a two-innings match, if the situation arises the captain decides; the captain is consulted on whether an injured batsman from the opposing team may use a runner when batting. Permission is given if the batsman has become injured during the course of the match, but if the batsman was carrying the injury at the start of the match the captain may refuse.
As well as decisions taken either before or during a match, captains often have some responsibility for the good running of the cricket club. For instance, they may decide when the team is to practise, for how long. In professional cricket the captain has some say in who will form the squad from which teams are selected, may decide how young up-and-coming players are to be encouraged and improved, how members of the squad who are not selected for first-team matches are to gain match practice. Prior to July 2015, the captain was responsible for deciding when to take batting and bowling powerplays in limited overs matches; the captain may be assisted in some instances joint vice-captains. This is useful if the captain is forced to leave the field of play during fielding; some teams allocate the vice-captain a more or less formal role in assisting with team selection, dis
Wicket
In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings. Firstly, it is one of two bails at either end of the pitch; the wicket is guarded by a batsman who, with his bat, attempts to prevent the ball from hitting the wicket. Secondly, through metonymic usage, the dismissal of a batsman is known as the taking of a wicket, thirdly, the cricket pitch itself is sometimes called the wicket; the origin of the word is from a small gate. Cricket wickets had only two stumps and one bail and looked like a gate; the third stump was introduced in 1775. The size and shape of the wicket has changed several times during the last 300 years and its dimensions and placing is now determined by Law 8 in the Laws of Cricket, thus: Law 8: The wickets; the wicket consists of three wooden stumps. The stumps are placed along the batting crease with equal distances between each stump, they are positioned. Two wooden bails are placed in shallow grooves on top of the stumps; the bails must not project more than 0.5 inches above the stumps, must, for men's cricket, be 4.31 inches long.
There are specified lengths for the barrel and spigots of the bail. There are different specifications for the bails for junior cricket; the umpires may dispense with the bails. Further details on the specifications of the wickets are contained in Appendix D to the laws. For a batsman to be dismissed by being bowled, run out, stumped or hit wicket, his wicket needs to be put down. What this means is defined by Law 29. A wicket is put down if a bail is removed from the top of the stumps, or a stump is struck out of the grounds by the ball, the striker's bat, the striker's person, a fielder. A 2010 amendment to the Laws clarified the rare circumstance where a bat breaks during the course of a shot and the detached debris breaks the wicket; the wicket is put down if a fielder pulls a stump out of the ground in the same manner. If one bail is off, removing the remaining bail or striking or pulling any of the three stumps out of the ground is sufficient to put the wicket down. A fielder may remake the wicket, if necessary, in order to put it down to have an opportunity of running out a batsman.
If however both bails are off, a fielder must remove one of the three stumps out of the ground with the ball, or pull it out of the ground with a hand or arm, provided that the ball is held in the hand or hands so used, or in the hand of the arm so used. If the umpires have agreed to dispense with bails, for example, it is too windy for the bails to remain on the stumps, the decision as to whether the wicket has been put down is one for the umpire concerned to decide. After a decision to play without bails, the wicket has been put down if the umpire concerned is satisfied that the wicket has been struck by the ball, by the striker's bat, person, or items of his clothing or equipment separated from his person as described above, or by a fielder with the hand holding the ball or with the arm of the hand holding the ball; the dismissal of a batsman is known as the taking of a wicket. The batsman is said to have lost his wicket, the batting side is said to have lost a wicket, the fielding side to have taken a wicket, the bowler is said to have taken his wicket, if the dismissal is one of the types for which the bowler receives credit.
This language is used if the dismissal did not involve the stumps and bails in any way, for example, a catch. Though note that the other four of the five most common methods of dismissal do involve the stumps and bails being put down, or prevented from being put down by the batsman; the word wicket has this meaning in the following contexts: A team's score is described in terms of the total number of runs scored and the total number of wickets lost. The number of wickets taken is a primary measure of a individual bowler's ability, a key part of a bowling analysis; the sequence of time over which two particular batsmen bat together, a partnership, is referred to as a numbered wicket when discriminating it from other partnerships in the innings. The first wicket partnership is from the start of the innings until the team loses its first wicket, i.e. one of the first two batsmen is dismissed. The second wicket partnership is from when the third batsman starts batting until the team loses its second wicket, i.e. a second batsman is dismissed.
Etc... The tenth wicket or last wicket partnership is from when the eleventh batsman starts batting until the team loses its tenth wicket, i.e. a tenth batsman is dismissed. A team can win a match by a certain number of wickets; this means that they were batting last, reached the winning target with a certain number of batsmen still not dismissed. For example, if the side scored the required number of runs to win with only three batsmen dismissed, they are said to have won by seven wickets; the word wicket is sometimes used to refer to the cricket pitch itself. According to the Laws of Cricket, this usage is incorrect, but it is in common usage and understood by cricket followers; the term sticky wicket refers to a situation in which the pitch has become damp due to rain or high humidity. This makes the path of the ball more unpredictable thus making the
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of, a 20-metre pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at the wicket with the bat, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this and dismiss each player. Means of dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the stumps and dislodges the bails, by the fielding side catching the ball after it is hit by the bat, but before it hits the ground; when ten players have been dismissed, the innings ends and the teams swap roles. The game is adjudicated by two umpires, aided by a third umpire and match referee in international matches, they communicate with two off-field scorers. There are various formats ranging from Twenty20, played over a few hours with each team batting for a single innings of 20 overs, to Test matches, played over five days with unlimited overs and the teams each batting for two innings of unlimited length.
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, a hard, solid spheroid made of compressed leather with a raised sewn seam enclosing a cork core, layered with wound string. Cricket's origins are uncertain and the earliest definite reference is in south-east England in the middle of the 16th century, it spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, leading to the first international matches in the second half of the 19th century. The game's governing body is the International Cricket Council, which has over 100 members, twelve of which are full members who play Test matches; the game's rules are held in a code called the Laws of Cricket, owned and maintained by Marylebone Cricket Club in London. The sport is followed in the Indian subcontinent, the United Kingdom, southern Africa and the West Indies, its globalisation occurring during the expansion of the British Empire and remaining popular into the 21st century.
Women's cricket, organised and played separately, has achieved international standard. The most successful side playing international cricket is Australia, having won seven One Day International trophies, including five World Cups, more than any other country, having been the top-rated Test side more than any other country. Cricket is one of many games in the "club ball" sphere that involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement. In cricket's case, a key difference is the existence of a solid target structure, the wicket, that the batsman must defend; the cricket historian Harry Altham identified three "groups" of "club ball" games: the "hockey group", in which the ball is driven to and fro between two targets. It is believed that cricket originated as a children's game in the south-eastern counties of England, sometime during the medieval period. 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 on Monday, 17 January 1597.
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: "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 was being played c. 1550 by boys in Surrey. The view that it was 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". One possible source for the sport's name is the Old English word "cryce" meaning a staff. In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick". In Old French, the word "criquet" seems to have meant a kind of stick. 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 "krick", meaning a stick.
Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word "krickstoel", meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church and which resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket. According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de sen. Gillmeister has suggested that not only the name but the sport itself may be of Flemish origin. Although the main object of the game has always been to score the most runs, the early form of cricket differed from the modern game in certain key technical aspects; the ball was bowled underarm by the bowler and all along the ground towards a batsman armed with a bat that, in shape, resembled a hockey stick.
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