Cricket, England’s national summer sport, which is now played throughout the world, particularly in Australia, India, Pakistan, the West Indies, and the British Isles.

Cricket is played with a bat and ball and involves two competing sides (teams) of 11 players. The field is oval with a rectangular area in the middle, known as the pitch, that is 22 yards (20.12 metres) by 10 feet (3.04 metres) wide. Two sets of three sticks, called wickets, are set in the ground at each end of the pitch. Across the top of each wicket lie horizontal pieces called bails. The sides take turns at batting and bowling (pitching); each turn is called an “innings” (always plural). Sides have one or two innings each, depending on the prearranged duration of the match, the object being to score the most runs. The bowlers, delivering the ball with a straight arm, try to break (hit) the wicket with the ball so that the bails fall. This is one of several ways that the batsman is dismissed, or put out. A bowler delivers six balls at one wicket (thus completing an “over”), then a different player from his side bowls six balls to the opposite wicket. The batting side defends its wicket.
International cricket in the early part of the 20th century was dominated by the original members of the Imperial Cricket Conference, England, Australia, and South Africa. Later renamed the International Cricket Conference and then the International Cricket Council, the ICC gradually took over more responsibility for the administration of the game and shifted its power base from west to east. When in 2005 the ICC moved its offices from Lord’s in London—home of the MCC, the game’s original rulers and still its lawmakers—to Dubai, the shift away from the old ways of governance was complete. The priorities of the game changed too. By the turn of the 21st century, only Australia and England still played Test cricket to full houses. Everywhere else, and particularly in India and Pakistan, crowds flocked to see limited-overs internationals.