Forms of Cricket

Test cricket

Test cricket is a form of international cricket started in 1877 during the 1876/77 English cricket team's tour of Australia. The first Test match began on 15 March 1877 and had a timeless format with four balls per over. It ended on 19 March 1877 with Australia winning by 45 runs.

The Test Cricket Series between England and Australia is called The Ashes, with the trophy being a tiny fragile urn, reputed to hold the ashes of a bail or cricket ball used during the second Test series between the two countries, which was presented to the English Cricket Captain, Ivo Bligh, by a group of Melbourne women, following the Test Series win by the England Cricket Team, during the England Cricket Team's Tour of Australia in 1882/83. Since then, over 1,700 Test matches have been played and the number of Test playing nations has increased to ten with Bangladesh, the most recent nation elevated to Test status, making its debut in 2000. Test matches are two innings games that must be finished within a five day time period. Tests that are not finished by five days are considered a draw and neither teams gets credit for a win.

One-day cricket

One-day matches, also known as limited overs or instant cricket, were introduced in English domestic cricket in the 1960s due to the growing demands for a shorter and more dramatic form of cricket to stem the decline in attendances. The idea was taken up in the international arena in 1971, during an England team tour of Australia, when a Test match was rained off, and the one-day game has since swollen to become a crowd-pleaser and TV-audience-generator across the globe.

The inaugural World Cup in 1975 did much to hasten this. The abbreviations ODI or sometimes LOI (for Limited Overs International) are used for international matches of this type. In one-day cricket, each team bats for only one innings, and it is limited to a number of overs, usually 50 in international matches. Despite its name, a one-day match may go into a second day if play is interrupted by rain. Day and night matches are also played which extend into the night. Innovations such as coloured clothing, frequent tournaments and result oriented-games often resulting in nail-biting finishes have seen ODI cricket gain many supporters. Strategies such as quick scoring, gravity-defying fielding and accurate bowling make this form more invigorating as compared to the Test matches.

First-class matches

A first-class match is generally defined as a high-level international or domestic match that takes place over at least three days on natural (as opposed to artificial) turf. A significant feature of first-class cricket is that games must have two innings per side, in contrast with games where the teams have one innings each (including limited overs matches played by teams that are normally recognised as first-class).

The status of a match depends on the status of the teams contesting it. All Test-playing nations are allowed to play first-class matches, as are their regional, state, provincial or county teams. Matches of Kenya, one of the foremost non-Test-playing nations, with other first class teams are adjudged first class, but its domestic matches are not. As a benchmark, a match can be considered first-class only if both teams have first-class status. Thus, a match between two Test nations, between two domestic teams in full members of the ICC, or between a Test nation and another Test nation's domestic team, may be considered first class. A Test match is also considered to be a first-class match, but one-day internationals are not due to the two innings per side rule.

The point of origin of first-class cricket is an ongoing controversy that is described in the main article.

Other forms of cricket

At lower levels, club cricket is usually played over one to two days, either as a two innings or one innings limited overs match. The game of cricket has also spawned a set of matches with modified rules to attract more fans. The 'Twenty20' rule can be an example of cricket rule modification, since this particular modification enforces a limit of 20 overs per innings, which makes the game rather shorter in order to maximise the attention of the fans. These matches are not recognised by the ICC as official matches. Other variants of the sport exist and are played in areas as diverse as on sandy beaches or on ice. Kwik cricket is a form of the sport where the bowler does not have to wait for the batsman to be ready before a delivery, leading to a faster, more exhausting game which is often used in school PE lessons.