Cricket

INDIAN CRICKET

Cricket can be considered as the most popular sports in India. Though hockey is our national game, cricket has reached heights due to its wide popularity and proper organizing. Indian cricket team started its long journey since 18th century. This game was introduced in India by British in 1700s. The first match is considered to have taken place in 1721 in Western India, in which a group of sailors participated. In the land of diversities, cricket stands as a uniting factor which brings in the whole country under one umbrella.

Indian cricket team is controlled and governed by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which is the richest cricket board in the whole cricket world. It is a member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test and One Day International (ODI) status. The captain of the Indian Cricket team is M.S. Dhoni. By winning World Cup Cricket in 1983, ICC Twenty20 World Cup Cricket in 2007 and World Cup Cricket 2011; India has reached one of the top scoring cricket teams in the world. Above all these achievements BCCI could produce the great talent of all times the Master Blaster, Sachin Tendulkar. He is the veteran of the International cricket players and a great asset and pride of Indian Cricket team. Indian team is ranked 5th team in test cricket and 2nd team in the one day international cricket matches.

TEST CRICKET Vs ONE DAY CRICKET

Test cricket is played for almost 5 days whereas one day match or limited-overs match will be played for one day with a restricted number of overs that is; maximum 50 overs. Test match can extend maximum upto 6 hours with 90 overs bowled per day. Another major difference can be seen in the colour of jerseys. For test cricket players wear white jerseys whereas for one day matches they go for colored wears. The colour of Indian team is blue. Hence they are nicknamed as ‘Men in Blue’. Test cricket is played with red balls whereas one day matches are played only using white balls.

Now limited-overs cricket has a sub division as Twenty20 internationals. The speciality of this game is that only 20 overs are played in this series. The popularity of Twenty20 internationals has increased with the advent of Indian Premier League (IPL) competitions and the entry of bollywood celebrities to the cricket as the owners of different clubs.

Another major difference is that in test cricket each team has to bat two times called innings. Each innings gets over only when 10 batsmen are out or when the batting tea’s captain declares that the innings is over. On the other hand in one day match the team has to bat once and the innings gets over only when the 10 bats men are out or when the complete overs are bowled.

There are both international as well as domestic cricket games taking place in our country. International cricket games don’t have any fixed patterns. Recently they have a tendency to play more one day matches than test series. Some of the domestic cricket games taking place in our country are;

• BCCI Corporate Trophy
• Irani Trophy
• NKP Salve Challenger Trophy
• Ranji Trophy
• Duleep Trophy
• Vijay Hazare Trophy
• Deodhar Trophy
• Inter-State T20 Championship
• Indian Premier League
• Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy

INDIA NATIONAL WOMEN’S CRICKET TEAM

To develop a women’s cricket was an initiation of International Cricket Council (ICC). In 2006 Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) was merged with BCCI. This team could win four Asia Cups among which 2004 was their initial victory. Indian Women’s Cricket team is led by Mithali Raj. Any comparison cannot be done between men’s and women’s cricket because in all the aspects it varies. Men have physical strength much more than women. Yet the women players have come to scene with their great performance in the past few years. As a whole when we analyse the cricket teams across India, we find that no other sports has gained this much interest and support from the citizens of India. The government is also over conscious about cricket and therefore other sports players are facing denials and no help for improving their caliber or practice. This can be pointed as the major reason why India cannot outshine in Olympics and many other International games like other countries. Its always an embarrassing to realize the fact that India doesn’t have a football team! Almost all the Latin American countries which are poorer than Indian even possess a football team. Let’s hope that the authorities tend their attention to this issue and prepare India better and present it at its best in coming years.