Stage 1Cricket as a Hobby

Cricket is a game in which one side bats and tries to score runs while the other bowls and fields and tries to get the batters out. Then they swap. That sentence covers a five-day Test match, a twenty-over evening game under lights, and a tennis ball bouncing off a building wall in a narrow lane. Everything else in this guide is detail, and cricket has more detail than almost any other sport.

It is also three hobbies wearing one set of whites. Some people play, at school, in a club, in a corporate league or on a patch of waste ground on Sunday morning. Some people watch, from a stand, on television, or with a radio and a flask. And a smaller, devoted group keeps score, recording every ball in a book so that the match can be read afterwards like a document. The three feed each other. A player who has scored a few matches understands the game better; a watcher who has played knows why a captain moved a fielder two paces to the left.

Who this guide is for

It is written for four readers at once: the complete beginner, perhaps a gully cricketer who now wants to play properly; the practising club cricketer who wants to bat longer, bowl without hurting their back and look after expensive kit; the specialist scorer, umpire, statistician or collector; and the general reader who knows that the history of Indian cricket is also a history of communities, princes, independence and television money.

How to use it

Part I is the game anywhere in the world: the Laws and formats, the basic skills, fitness and injury, equipment, scoring, umpiring, where people play and how to watch. It ends with looking after what you own, from a knocked-in bat to a scorebook you kept at sixteen (see Stages 15 and 16).

Part II is the Indian story: the Parsi pioneers of Bombay, the first Test in 1932, the long road to the 1983 World Cup, the later landmarks, women's cricket, the board and the domestic game, the grounds, and gully cricket as a culture.

Three kinds of box run through the text: First Steps for the beginner, For the Cricketer for the numbers and finer points, and Sidebars for stories and arguments.

A word on safety

A leather cricket ball is hard enough to break fingers, teeth and cheekbones, so this guide repeats one rule more than any other: against a hard ball, wear a helmet when batting, keeping wicket up to the stumps, or fielding close to the bat. Stage 8 explains the rest.

Stage 2The Laws in Outline

Cricket has Laws, not rules, and the capital letter matters. The Laws of Cricket are written and maintained by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), based at Lord's in London, which revises them every few years. There are 42 Laws. Competitions then add playing conditions on top: the International Cricket Council (ICC) for international matches, and national boards such as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for their own tournaments. Playing conditions change things like the number of bouncers allowed in an over or where fielders may stand. When a club match and a televised match seem to follow different rules, this is usually why.

The field and the pitch

The game is played on a large, roughly oval field with a boundary rope or line. In the middle is the pitch, a strip of closely mown, rolled ground. At each end of the pitch stands a wicket: three stumps with two bails resting in grooves on top. The distance between the two wickets is 22 yards.

White lines called creases are painted at each end. The bowling crease runs through the stumps. The popping crease is four feet in front of it, and a batter is safe from being run out or stumped when some part of their body or bat is grounded behind it. The return creases run at right angles to them and limit how wide of the stumps a bowler may deliver.

Overs, runs and extras

Bowlers deliver the ball in overs of six legal deliveries, from alternate ends. No bowler may bowl two overs in a row. Batters score runs by running between the wickets after hitting the ball, or by hitting it to the boundary: four if it touches the ground first, six if it clears the boundary on the full.

Runs that do not come off the bat are extras. A wide is a delivery the batter could not reasonably reach. A no-ball is an illegal delivery, most often because the bowler's front foot landed with no part of it behind the popping crease. Both add a penalty run and must be bowled again. Byes are runs taken when the ball passes the batter and keeper without touching the bat or body; leg byes are runs taken after the ball strikes the batter's body rather than the bat.

How a batter gets out

The Laws list the ways a batter can be dismissed. The common ones are bowled (the ball breaks the wicket), caught (a fielder catches the ball off the bat or glove before it touches the ground), leg before wicket or LBW, run out, and stumped (the keeper breaks the wicket while the batter is out of their ground and not attempting a run). The rarer ones are hit wicket, obstructing the field, hit the ball twice and timed out, where a new batter takes too long to arrive.

LBW causes more argument than anything else. In outline, a batter can be out LBW when the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps, it did not pitch outside the line of leg stump, and it struck the batter in line with the stumps. A batter who plays no shot can also be out if struck outside the line of off stump. At the top level, television replays and the Decision Review System now settle many disputed calls.

Stage 3The Formats

Cricket is one game played at several lengths, and the length changes almost everything: tactics, technique, fitness and even the colour of the ball.

First-class and Test cricket

Test cricket is the international form, played between national teams over a scheduled maximum of five days, with each side batting twice. The first Test was played between Australia and England at Melbourne in 1877. First-class cricket is the same long form at domestic level, usually over three or four days; India's Ranji Trophy is first-class (see Stage 22).

Long-form cricket has no limit on overs per innings. A side wins by bowling the other out twice for fewer runs than it scored, which takes time. If time runs out first, the match is drawn, which is not the same thing as a tie (scores level with the side batting last all out). A captain with a lead may declare, ending their side's innings early, to leave enough time to bowl the opposition out. A draw can be the most tense result in the game: a side nine wickets down, batting out the last hour.

Tests are traditionally played in white clothing with a red ball. Day-night Tests use a pink ball, which is easier to see under lights.

One-day cricket

In limited-overs cricket each side bats once for a fixed number of overs. The first men's One-Day International (ODI) was played at Melbourne in 1971, and the first men's World Cup in England in 1975; the first women's World Cup was in England two years earlier, in 1973. ODIs are 50 overs a side, played in coloured clothing, usually with a white ball. Domestic one-day cricket at this level is called List A.

Limited-overs cricket introduced fielding restrictions: during set periods called powerplays, only a limited number of fielders may stand outside a circle marked roughly 30 yards from the pitch. Its purpose is to stop captains simply posting everyone on the boundary.

Twenty20

Twenty20 (T20) gives each side 20 overs and lasts about three hours. The first professional T20 competition was played in England in 2003, and the first men's T20 International followed in 2005. It has since produced the franchise leagues, of which India's IPL is the largest (see Stage 20). T20 rewards power hitting, variation in bowling pace, and fielding athleticism.

Other short forms exist. England's The Hundred uses 100 balls an innings. Six-a-side, indoor and tape-ball cricket are played widely at amateur level (see Stage 13).

Stage 4Batting Fundamentals

Batting is the art of not getting out first and scoring runs second. Beginners reverse the order, and their innings are short.

Grip and stance

For a right-handed batter, the hands sit close together near the top of the handle, the left hand above the right, with the V shapes formed by thumb and forefinger of both hands pointing roughly between the splice and the outside edge of the bat. The top hand controls the bat; a bottom hand that grips too hard drags the face across the line of the ball. Left-handers mirror all of this.

The stance is side-on, feet about shoulder-width apart either side of the popping crease, knees slightly flexed, weight balanced on the balls of the feet, head still and eyes level. A still head is the most important single thing in batting. The eyes judge line and length far better when they are not moving. Before facing, a batter asks the umpire for a guard, a mark on the crease showing where to stand, usually in line with middle stump, leg stump or between the two.

Backlift, front foot and back foot

As the bowler runs in, the bat is lifted back, pointing roughly towards the slips or first slip, in a backlift. The batter then moves either forward to a fuller ball that pitches close to them, or back to a shorter ball that bounces further away and rises. That decision, made in a fraction of a second, is the foundation of batting.

The main front-foot strokes are the forward defensive, the drives (straight, on, off and cover) and the sweep. The main back-foot strokes are the back defensive, the pull, the hook, the cut and the back-foot punch. Each defensive stroke has the same aim: to meet the ball with the full face of the bat, angled down, close to the pad, with the head over the ball.

Judging and leaving

Good batters know where their off stump is and leave balls that pass safely outside it. Leaving is a stroke. In long-form cricket it tires bowlers and saves wickets; in T20 it is used less, but the principle of knowing which balls can hurt you still holds.

Running between the wickets

Call clearly and loudly: yes, no or wait. The batter with the better view of the ball calls, which usually means the striker for shots in front of the wicket and the non-striker for shots behind. Run the first run hard, turn facing the ball, and slide the bat into the crease rather than running it in. Many club run-outs come from lazy first runs and silent partnerships.

Stage 5Pace Bowling

Fast and medium-pace bowlers try to beat the batter with speed, bounce and movement. They also carry most of cricket's injury risk, so technique here is about staying fit as much as taking wickets.

Grip and seam

The basic seam-bowling grip places the first and second fingers either side of the seam, close together, with the thumb resting underneath on the seam and the ball held in the fingers rather than the palm. At release the seam should be as upright as possible, so that the ball lands on it. A ball that lands on an upright seam can deviate off the pitch unpredictably, which is called seam movement.

The action

A pace bowler's action runs in phases: a rhythmic run-up, a gather and bound in which the bowler jumps into the delivery stride, back-foot contact, front-foot contact, release and follow-through. The follow-through carries the bowler away from the pitch, and must avoid the protected area in the middle of it, which bowlers' boots would damage.

Coaches describe actions by how the hips and shoulders are aligned at back-foot contact. In a side-on action both point down the pitch towards the batter's side of the ground; in a front-on action both face the batter. Both are sound. The danger is a mixed action, in which the hips face one way and the shoulders twist to another, forcing the lower back to rotate and bend at the same moment. Research on young fast bowlers has linked mixed actions with stress injuries of the lower spine. A qualified coach can spot one in a few deliveries, and correcting it early is far easier than later.

A legal action

The Laws require the ball to be bowled, not thrown. International regulations allow a small, measured degree of elbow straightening, tested in a laboratory when a bowler is reported; at club level the umpire judges by eye. A suspect action is a coaching problem, not an insult.

Line, length and variations

Line is how far the ball is to the left or right; length is where it pitches along the pitch. The classic target for a seamer is just outside off stump, on a length that makes the batter unsure whether to go forward or back. The exact spot depends on pace and on the pitch, so bowlers learn it by watching where the ball passes the stumps and where the keeper takes it.

Variations add threat: the bouncer, short and aimed at the body or head, restricted in number by playing conditions; the yorker, pitched at the batter's feet; the slower ball, disguised by grip or wrist; and cutters, in which the fingers drag across the ball to make it grip and deviate.

Stage 6Spin Bowling

Spinners bowl slower and try to beat the batter in the air and off the pitch, through flight, drift, dip and turn. Flight is the loop of the ball's path. Drift is sideways movement in the air caused by the spin. Dip is the ball dropping sooner than the batter expects. Turn is the change in direction after it pitches.

Finger spin

Finger spinners impart spin mainly with the index finger. A right-arm off-spinner turns the ball from the off side towards the leg side, into a right-handed batter. A left-arm orthodox spinner, using the same method with the other hand, turns the ball away from a right-hander. The grip spreads the first two fingers wide across the seam, with the ball spun by a clockwise (off-spin) twist of the fingers and wrist.

Wrist spin

Wrist spinners use the wrist and third finger to impart more spin. A right-arm leg-spinner turns the ball from leg to off, away from a right-handed batter. Their variations include the googly, which turns the other way from what looks like the same action; the top-spinner, which dips and bounces; and the flipper, squeezed out to skid low. Left-arm wrist spin, turning into a right-hander, is rarer still. Wrist spin is harder to control and slower to learn, which is why a good young leg-spinner is valued so highly.

Modern spinners also use the carrom ball, flicked out between thumb and a bent middle finger, and deliveries such as the doosra, an off-spinner's ball that turns the other way. Some of these place the elbow and wrist under strain, and several bowlers have had their actions reported while developing them. Learn the basic stock ball first.

Pace, field and patience

Good spinners vary their pace by small amounts, which changes how much the ball turns and how long the batter has to adjust. They bowl to their field, attacking with a slip and a short leg or defending with a sweeper on the boundary, and they need patience: a spinner may bowl ten overs to set up one dismissal.

Stage 7Fielding and Wicketkeeping

Catches win matches. Fielding is the one skill every player uses, and the one most club cricketers practise least.

The positions

Fielding positions have names that sound odd until you learn the logic. The off side is the side the batter faces when taking a stance; the leg side, or on side, is behind them. Fine means close to the line of the pitch, square means level with the batter, silly means very close to the bat, and deep means near the boundary. So fine leg stands behind the batter on the leg side near the line of the pitch, and deep square leg stands on the leg-side boundary level with the batter.

Close to the bat behind the wicket on the off side stand the slips and gully. In front of square on the off side are point, cover and mid-off; on the leg side, mid-on, midwicket and square leg. The deep positions include third man, long-off, long-on and deep midwicket.

Catching

For a catch above chest height, the fingers point up and the thumbs touch; below the chest, the fingers point down and the little fingers touch. Watch the ball all the way into the hands, and let the hands give backwards as the ball arrives so that it does not bounce out. Slip fielders crouch low with weight forward, hands relaxed in front of the knees, and move only when the ball has left the bat.

Ground fielding and throwing

Attack the ball rather than waiting for it. To stop a ball coming straight at you on a rough outfield, use the long barrier: turn side-on, kneel so that the leg forms a second barrier behind the hands, and gather the ball in front of the body. When a run-out is possible, pick up cleanly, set the feet, and throw overarm to the keeper's gloves just above the bails. A fast, flat throw that bounces once is often better than a looping one on the full.

Diving saves runs but can damage shoulders on hard or uneven ground. Learn to slide and roll with a coach on soft ground first.

Wicketkeeping

The wicketkeeper is involved in almost every delivery. Against pace, keepers stand back, several yards behind the stumps, crouched with the gloves together and the fingers pointing down, rising with the bounce of the ball. Against spin, and against gentle medium pace, they stand up to the stumps to threaten a stumping and stop the batter leaving the crease.

The skill is in taking the ball late, close to the body, with hands that give. Keepers move their feet rather than reaching, and keep their head still and in line. They also wear inner gloves inside the keeping gloves, for sweat and cushioning.

Stage 8Fitness, Injury and Staying Safe

Cricket looks gentle from the boundary. It is not. Fast bowlers put forces several times their body weight through the front leg and lower back at every delivery; fielders sprint, stop and throw; and the ball is hard enough to cause serious injury. The advice in this stage is deliberately conservative. It does not replace a doctor, a qualified physiotherapist or a qualified coach.

Warm-up, conditioning and load

Warm up before every session with light jogging, dynamic stretches and gradually faster throws and deliveries, and cool down afterwards. Build fitness in the off-season with running, strength and core work, always supervised for young players, whose bodies are still growing.

For bowlers the key word is workload, meaning the number of deliveries bowled over days and weeks. Injury risk rises when the load jumps suddenly, as it does when a player bowls little over the off-season and then bowls long spells in the first week. Build up gradually over several weeks before the season, count overs in nets as well as matches, and take rest days. Several national boards publish fast-bowling limits for young players, setting maximum overs per spell and per day and minimum rest between spells, with stricter limits for younger age groups. Find the current guidance your school, club or association follows and keep to it.

Protective equipment against a hard ball

• Helmet with faceguard whenever batting, keeping up to the stumps, or fielding close to the bat. Choose one certified to the current British Standard for cricket helmets (BS 7928) or an equivalent standard the maker states clearly, and fit it snugly.
• Neck guard, the attachment that protects the back of the neck below the helmet. Some boards have made them compulsory for professional batters.
• Box (abdominal guard) for every batter, keeper and close fielder, male or female, in the style made for them.
• Pads, batting gloves, and optionally thigh, arm and chest guards.

Replace a helmet after it takes a hard blow from the ball, even if nothing looks damaged, because the shell or foam may have failed invisibly. Stage 15 covers helmet care.

Head injury and concussion

Any player struck on the head who shows signs of concussion must stop playing at once and must not return to play that day. Signs include confusion, headache, dizziness, blurred vision, nausea, unsteadiness, and not knowing the score or where they are. Symptoms can appear hours later. The player needs medical assessment, and then a gradual, medically guided return. If a player loses consciousness, has a seizure, vomits repeatedly or gets worse, call emergency services.

Heat

Much Indian cricket is played in heat that can be dangerous. Drink water regularly, before feeling thirsty, and use oral rehydration solution in long sessions. Wear a hat and sunscreen, take breaks in shade, and avoid the hottest hours for training. Confusion, a hot dry skin, collapse or stopping sweating in the heat is a medical emergency.

Stage 9Choosing Equipment

Kit is where beginners waste the most money: on a bat that is too heavy, a top-grade blade they will crack in a month, or protective gear that does not fit. Buy in order of safety first, then comfort, then performance.

The bat: English or Kashmir willow

Cricket bats are made from willow. English willow is a cultivated variety of white willow grown mainly in England and prized for being light, fibrous and springy, so that the ball comes off the face fast. It is also soft, needs careful preparation before use (see Stage 15), and costs more. Makers grade English willow by appearance: straight, evenly spaced grains and few blemishes earn a higher grade and a higher price. Grades are not standardised between makers, and a handsome grain does not guarantee a better-performing bat.

Kashmir willow is grown in the Kashmir valley, where a bat-making industry is centred in the south of the valley. It is denser, harder and heavier for the same size, with less spring off the face, but it is tough and much cheaper. It is a sensible first bat for a growing player, for practice, and for casual cricket.

Size and weight

Junior bats come in numbered sizes, then Harrow, then adult Short Handle and Long Handle. Makers publish charts matching size to height. A rough check: stand upright with the bat's toe beside your foot, and the top of the handle should come to about the top of your thigh.

Weight matters more than players admit. Most adult club bats weigh roughly 1.1 to 1.25 kg, but a heavy bat is not automatically a powerful one. Hold the bat in a backlift and then in a forward defensive position for a few seconds. If it drags your hands down or your wrists ache, it is too heavy. A young player with a bat that is too heavy develops faults that take years to remove. Pick a bat for its pick-up, the way the weight is balanced towards the handle, as well as its dead weight on the scales.

Protective gear

• Helmet: certified to BS 7928 or an equivalent stated standard, fitted snugly, with the grille set so that a ball cannot pass between grille and peak. Never buy a second-hand helmet, because you cannot know whether it has taken a hard blow.
• Batting gloves: fingers should reach the ends without cramping; the protection on the thumb and fingers of the bottom hand matters most.
• Pads: the knee roll should sit at the kneecap when you stand; pads that are too long catch when you run.
• Box and, as you progress, thigh, arm and chest guards.

Balls, shoes and the rest

Leather balls come in four-piece construction, with the leather cut in four quarters and stitched, which holds its shape longer, and cheaper two-piece balls for practice. Synthetic and soft training balls are useful for young players. Shoes with metal spikes grip on grass; rubber-studded shoes suit matting, artificial surfaces and hard, dry grounds. Fast bowlers need shoes with a firm heel and good protection at the toe, where the back foot drags.

In India, the sports-goods trade is centred in cities such as Meerut and Jalandhar.

Stage 10Keeping Score

The scorebook is the official record of the match: when umpires and scorers agree the result, it is the book that says who won, not memory. In most club cricket each side supplies a scorer, and the two check each other.

Anatomy of a scorebook

A traditional scorebook page covers one innings and has five main parts.

• The batting section: a line for each batter, with their runs recorded one scoring stroke at a time, how they were out, the bowler, and their total.
• The running tally: rows of printed numbers, crossed off as the team total rises, so the score can be read at a glance.
• The fall of wickets: the team total when each wicket fell, and which batter was out.
• The bowling analysis: a grid of boxes for each bowler, one box per over, plus columns for overs, maidens, runs and wickets.
• The extras: separate places for byes, leg byes, wides and no-balls.

Every ball, three times

Each delivery is recorded in several places at once. A single off the bat goes into the bowler's over box as a 1, into the batter's line as a 1, and is ticked off on the running tally. A dot ball goes only into the bowler's box. A bye goes into the bowler's box as a bye symbol, into the byes section, and onto the tally, but it is not credited to the batter or charged to the bowler. At the end of each over the scorer checks that the bowler's runs, plus any byes and leg byes, account for the rise in the total. This is called balancing the book, and it catches mistakes while they can still be fixed.

Signals and the scorer

Scorers take their information from the umpires' signals (see Stage 12) and must acknowledge each one, usually with a raised hand or a flash of a light, so the umpire knows it has been seen. A scorer who is unsure should ask at the next break, not guess.

Many leagues now score on apps, which calculate everything automatically. Experienced scorers often keep a paper book as well, because a flat battery does not erase a pencil. Broadcast and statistical scorers often use a linear method, recording every ball in sequence so that an innings can be reconstructed ball by ball.

Stage 11The Numbers: Averages, Strike Rates and Economy

Cricket's statistics are simple arithmetic applied with care. The care is in knowing what goes on top of each fraction and what goes underneath.

Batting figures

A batting average is runs scored divided by the number of times the batter was dismissed. Innings in which the batter was not out add their runs but not a dismissal. That is why a lower-order batter who is often not out at the end can have a surprisingly high average, and why the number of not-outs belongs beside every average. Printed scorecards mark a not-out score with a small star.

A batting strike rate is runs per hundred balls faced: runs divided by balls faced, multiplied by 100. A wide is not a ball faced. A no-ball is, because the batter could hit it.

Bowling figures

A bowling average is runs conceded divided by wickets taken. Lower is better.

An economy rate is runs conceded per over. The trap is the way overs are written. 28.4 overs means 28 overs and 4 balls, which is 172 balls, not twenty-eight and four-tenths of an over. To calculate economy, convert to balls, divide by six to get true overs, and then divide the runs by that.

A bowling strike rate is balls bowled per wicket: balls divided by wickets. It shows how often a bowler takes a wicket, whatever the cost.

Wides and no-balls are charged to the bowler. Byes and leg byes are not; they count against the fielding side as a whole.

Team figures

A run rate is runs per over, using true overs as above. The required run rate in a chase is runs still needed divided by overs remaining. In tournaments, teams level on points are often separated by net run rate: the team's runs scored per over across the tournament, minus the runs conceded per over. When a team is bowled out before its overs are used, the calculation counts the full quota of overs it was entitled to, not the overs it actually batted.

Numbers in context

A number without context misleads. A strike rate of 70 is ordinary in T20 and brisk in a Test. An average of 30 in a league of flat pitches may be worth less than 22 on seaming ones. Serious statisticians therefore compare players within the same format, era and conditions, and look at the number of innings before trusting an average at all.

Stage 12Umpiring Basics

Umpires apply the Laws and make the decisions players argue about afterwards. It is a demanding hobby in its own right, and good club umpires are always in short supply.

Two umpires, two jobs

The bowler's end umpire stands behind the stumps at the bowling end. They count the balls in the over, watch the bowler's front foot for no-balls, call wides, and decide on bowled, caught and LBW. The striker's end umpire usually stands at square leg, level with the batter, where they can judge run-outs and stumpings at that end. The two swap roles every over. They also decide, together, on the fitness of the ground, the weather and the light.

Appeals and the benefit of the doubt

Under the Laws an umpire does not give a batter out unless the fielding side appeals, traditionally with a shout of "How's that?" A batter who knows they are out may leave without waiting, which is called walking. It is a long-standing principle of umpiring that doubt goes in the batter's favour. If the umpire is not sure, the answer is not out.

Before the first ball

Arrive early, walk the boundary, check the creases and stumps, agree the playing conditions and interval times with both captains, inspect the match balls, and meet the scorers. Carry a ball counter (six coins moved between pockets will do), a pen and card, the playing conditions and a watch.

Learning the trade

In lower-level club cricket players often take turns to umpire; higher leagues use panels of qualified umpires. In India umpires come through state association and board examinations, and England has the Association of Cricket Officials. A first course is also one of the best ways to become a better player.

Stage 13Club, School, Tape-Ball and Gully Cricket

Most cricket is not played in stadiums. It is played on club grounds, school fields, municipal maidans, rooftops, car parks and lanes, and each setting has its own habits.

Club cricket

A club is the natural home of the adult hobbyist. It gives you nets, coaching, a fixture list, teammates of similar ability, and usually some shared kit. Clubs often run several sides graded by ability, so a beginner can start in a lower team and move up. Membership fees and match fees vary enormously by city and club, so ask before you join.

Clubs survive on volunteers who roll the pitch, score, umpire and organise tea, and a new member who offers to help is welcomed faster than one who only wants to bat at number three.

School, junior and academy cricket

Young players usually begin at school or in a junior section. Private academies are common in Indian cities. A good one has qualified coaches, sensible fast-bowling limits (see Stage 8), proper protective gear for every child, and honest conversations with parents. Be wary of any academy that promises selection for a state or national side in exchange for fees; no private academy can promise that.

Corporate, league and box cricket

Office leagues, weekend tournaments and box cricket, played with modified rules in netted enclosures on hired artificial turf, let adults return to the game without giving up whole weekends.

Tape-ball and tennis-ball cricket

Tape-ball cricket uses a tennis ball wrapped tightly in electrical insulating tape. The tape makes the ball heavier, harder and skiddier, and allows a fast bowler to make it swing. It is very widely played across South Asia and in South Asian communities abroad. Tennis-ball cricket uses the ball unwrapped. Both allow fast bowling and big hitting on concrete, with light bats and little protective kit, which is why they are the game most people in the region actually play.

A taped ball bowled fast can still injure eyes, teeth and fingers. Players who move on to hard-ball cricket must adjust to more than a new ball, as the box below explains.

Gully cricket, practically

Gully cricket, from the Hindi gali, a lane, is street and courtyard cricket played with whatever is to hand. Stage 24 covers its culture, and a checklist for playing it safely.

Stage 14Watching Well

Watching cricket well means seeing what the players see: what the pitch is doing, what the conditions allow, and what each captain is trying to make happen. Once you can read those three things, a quiet session becomes absorbing.

Reading the pitch

• Grass cover. A pitch with a green tinge and live grass tends to help seam bowlers, especially early, because the ball grips and deviates off the seam.
• Hard and dry. A firm, dry, well-rolled pitch usually gives true bounce and good batting at first.
• Cracks and wear. As a long match goes on, cracks open and bowlers' footmarks rough up the surface. Spinners aim at these rough patches, and the ball starts to turn and bounce unevenly.
• Dust and crumbling. A dry pitch that breaks up early favours spin from the first or second day.

Traditional Indian pitches have tended to become more helpful to spin as a match wears on, which is one reason India has produced so many great spinners (see Stage 18). Pitches differ from ground to ground and season to season, though, and a pitch report at the start of play is worth listening to.

Conditions

Weather changes the game as much as the pitch. Swing bowlers are said to prosper under cloud and in humid air. In evening and night matches in India, particularly in winter, dew settles on the outfield and wets the ball, making it hard for bowlers and fielders to grip. That is why captains in night games often choose to field first: they would rather bowl while the ball is still dry. Heat saps fast bowlers, and a strong wind can help swing from one end and punish bowling into it from the other.

Tactics to watch for

• The field before the over. Count the slips, look for a short leg, and check how many fielders are on the boundary. The field shows the captain's intention before the ball is bowled.
• Bowling changes. A captain who brings on a spinner in the first hour is reading something in the pitch.
• The new ball. In Test cricket the fielding side may take a new ball after 80 overs of the old one. Watch whether they take it at once, or keep an old ball that is reversing.
• The declaration. In long-form cricket, the timing of a declaration is the captain's biggest bet (see Stage 3).
• The chase. In limited-overs cricket, watch the required run rate against wickets in hand.

When rain shortens a limited-overs match, targets are reset using the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, a statistical system that accounts for both overs and wickets lost. It is often misunderstood and rarely mysterious once you know that wickets in hand are treated as a resource, like overs.

Storage and Preservation

Stage 15Care and Maintenance of Kit

Cricket kit is not cheap, and some of it cannot be replaced at any price: the bat you scored your first hundred with, a keeper's gloves shaped to your hands over three seasons. Most kit is not destroyed in matches. It is destroyed afterwards, zipped wet into a bag, left in a car boot in May, or oiled into a soggy lump by an owner who meant well. This stage covers the working kit. Stage 16 covers the paper, photographs and signed keepsakes.

The enemies of kit

• Moisture. Water swells willow, rots leather, grows mould on sweaty gloves and pads, rusts helmet grilles and spikes, and softens balls. It enters most easily through end grain, stitching and foam.
• Heat. Dry heat pulls moisture out of willow, which then cracks; it hardens and cracks leather; it weakens the glue in shoes and grips; and it degrades the foam and shell of helmets. A closed car in an Indian summer becomes far hotter than the air outside.
• Sweat. Sweat is salty and acidic and feeds bacteria. Left in gloves, helmet liners and pads, it causes smell, stiff and cracked leather, and mould.
• Sunlight. Ultraviolet light fades colours and dries leather.
• Pests. Rodents chew salty leather, cockroaches seek out sweat-stained kit, and termites attack a bat left on a damp floor.
• Well-meant fixes. Too much oil, drying on a heater or in direct sun, bleach on leather, and bending a damaged grille back into shape all do more harm than the original problem.

Bats: oiling

A new English willow bat without a protective face covering usually needs light oiling. Use raw linseed oil, not boiled linseed oil, which contains drying additives. Apply a small amount, about a teaspoon for the face, and spread it thinly with the fingers or a soft cloth over the face, edges, toe and back. Keep oil off the splice (where the handle joins the blade), the handle and the stickers. Lay the bat flat, face up, so the oil cannot run down into the toe, and leave it for at least a day to soak in. A second light coat may follow.

Do not overdo it. Too much oil makes a bat heavy and dead, softens the fibres and can lead to rot. If the surface still looks wet or feels tacky the next day, you used too much; wipe off the excess. After the first preparation, a light coat once or twice a season is usually plenty. Always follow the maker's instructions first. Many bats now come pre-prepared, with a clear protective film on the face, and makers usually say not to oil under it.

Bats: knocking in

Knocking in compresses the soft fibres of the face and edges so they are less likely to crack or dent when struck by a hard ball. Use a proper bat mallet or an old leather ball in a sock. Start gently and build the force gradually. Strike the face repeatedly, and strike the edges at an angle rather than square-on, to round them over. Take care near the toe.

Makers commonly recommend several hours of knocking in, spread over days, followed by short net sessions against older, softer balls before the bat faces a new ball in a match. Kashmir willow is harder and is often sold ready to play, but a little preparation still helps.

Bats: covers, toes and cracks

An anti-scuff sheet is a clear adhesive film over the face. It holds the surface together, reduces fine cracking and keeps moisture out. Replace it when it starts to peel, because a lifting sheet traps damp underneath.

The toe is end grain, and it drinks water like a sponge. A wet toe swells, softens and splits. Fit a toe guard, a rubber or resin cap, and do not tap the bat on hard or wet ground while waiting to face.

Fine surface cracks on the face and edges are normal in a used bat. Watch them. A crack that widens, a split through an edge, a damaged toe or any movement at the splice or handle needs repair. Small edge cracks can be glued with wood glue, clamped, dried, sanded and bound with fibreglass tape; a cracked splice or broken handle is a job for a bat repairer, and sports-goods shops in most Indian cities can recommend one.

Store bats indoors, in a cool, dry place away from outside walls, bathrooms, kitchen steam and direct sun. Keep them off the floor, and never leave one in a car boot or zipped in a damp bag.

Pads, gloves and helmets

Pads made of modern foam and synthetic facings can be wiped with a cloth dampened in mild soapy water and dried in shade. Keep the straps clean, and let pads dry fully before storage. Older cane-and-leather pads need the same gentleness as any leather.

Batting and keeping gloves absorb more sweat than anything else in the bag. After every session take them out, open the cuffs, spread the fingers and let them dry in a shaded, airy spot, never on a heater or in hot sun, which cracks the palms. Wear cotton inner gloves and wash them after every use. Rotating two pairs lets each dry fully. If mould appears, often as a white or greenish bloom on leather palms after the monsoon, take the gloves outdoors, wipe with a cloth dampened in mild soap solution, and dry thoroughly. Never use bleach on leather. Gloves that stay mouldy or smelly after cleaning, or whose protection has split, should be replaced.

Helmets need care and inspection. Remove washable sweatbands and liners and wash them. Wipe the inside foam with mild soapy water, and dry in shade. Check that grille bolts are tight, and look for rust on the grille, cracks in the shell, and compressed or crumbling foam. Replace a helmet after a hard blow from the ball, even if nothing looks damaged, and replace it at once if the grille is bent. Never bend a grille back, drill a shell or paint it. Follow the maker's advice on replacement age, and never leave a helmet in a hot car or under heavy kit.

Balls, whites, the bag and shoes

Leather balls that get wet go soft, swell and lose their shape and seam. Dry them slowly at room temperature, not in the sun or on a heater, which cracks the leather. Keep practice balls in a mesh bag in a dry place.

Whites stain with grass, soil, sweat and the red marks bowlers leave shining the ball on their trousers. Treat stains soon, before washing, with a stain remover suited to the fabric, and wash as the care label says. Chlorine bleach can yellow synthetic whites, so check the label before using it.

The kit bag is where kit goes to rot. Empty it completely after every match, hang wet items to dry, and leave the bag open to air. Wipe out the lining regularly, and never store damp kit zipped away, least of all in the monsoon.

Shoes should have their insoles removed after play, and be stuffed with newspaper that is changed as it dampens. Dry them away from direct heat, which cracks leather and loosens glue. Dry metal spikes to prevent rust, check that they are tight, replace worn ones with the right fitting, and never walk on concrete in spikes.

Stage 16Preserving Scorebooks, Photographs and Signed Keepsakes

A bat can be bought again. The scorebook from the season your club won the league cannot, nor the photograph of your grandfather in whites, nor the cap signed by a team you watched as a child. Paper, photographs, ink and textiles are far more fragile than willow and leather, and in Indian conditions they are lost quickly unless someone takes deliberate care of them.

The enemies of paper, ink and cloth

• Light and UV. Light fades inks, dyes and photographs and yellows paper. Many signature inks, especially felt-tip and marker, are dyes that fade badly. The damage is cumulative and cannot be reversed.
• High relative humidity. Above roughly 65% for long periods, mould grows on paper, leather bindings, photographs and textiles. Damp paper cockles and the brown spotting called foxing appears.
• Temperature swings. Rising and falling temperature changes the relative humidity inside a cupboard or frame, so moisture moves in and out of paper and wood, stressing both.
• Pests. Silverfish graze on paper and the sizing in it, cockroaches eat paper and leave stains, termites tunnel through books and wooden frames, and clothes moth and carpet beetle larvae eat wool caps and sweaters.
• Acids and bad materials. Cheap paper, cardboard boxes, wood and ordinary plastic sleeves give off acids or plasticisers that yellow and weaken what they touch.
• Dust and handling. Dust is abrasive and holds moisture and pests. Fingers leave sweat and oil.
• Well-meant fixes. Sticky tape, lamination, glue, rubber bands, staples and cleaning signatures all do permanent harm.

Scorebooks and personal records

Keep old scorebooks closed, upright or flat, in an archival box made of acid-free, lignin-free board, on an inside wall and off the floor. Loose scoresheets and printed scorecards go in folders of acid-free paper, or in clear sleeves of polyester, polypropylene or polyethylene, never soft PVC. Remove paper clips, staples and rubber bands, which rust, crumble or stain.

Pencil is the most light-stable writing medium a scorer uses. Many inks fade in light or run if damp. If a spine is broken, do not tape it; take it to a bookbinder, or keep the pages together in a folder.

Digitising is the best insurance. Scan or photograph every page flat and square, in even light, at a resolution high enough to read the smallest handwriting when zoomed in; 300 dots per inch is a sensible minimum and 600 better for faint pencil. Save a master copy in an uncompressed or high-quality format such as TIFF or top-quality JPEG, and a PDF of the whole book for reading. Name files consistently, for example by date, teams and ground. Type the key figures into a spreadsheet saved also as plain CSV, which any program will open decades from now.

Keep three copies of the digital files, on two different kinds of storage, with one kept away from home, such as a cloud account or a drive at a relative's house. This is the 3-2-1 rule. Open a few files each year to check that the copies still work.

Photographs

Keep prints in albums with acid-free pages and photo corners, or in sleeves that have passed the Photographic Activity Test (PAT), a standard test for materials that touch photographs. Avoid the old self-adhesive "magnetic" albums, whose glue yellows and bonds to prints. Hold prints by the edges, keep them out of light, and never write on the back with ballpoint, which presses through; use a soft pencil lightly at the edge. Negatives and slides go in polyester sleeves. Scan important photographs and back them up with the 3-2-1 rule.

Signed bats, caps and shirts

A signature is only as permanent as its ink, and most signed memorabilia uses marker or felt-tip ink that fades in light.

• Light is the main enemy. Display signed items away from windows and out of direct sun. Use UV-filtering glazing, glass or acrylic, and LED lighting, which gives off little UV. Consider rotating items, displaying one while others rest in the dark.
• Handle as little as possible. Hold a signed bat by the handle with clean, dry hands, never on the signed area. Never oil, knock in or play with a signed bat, and never varnish or lacquer over signatures, which can dissolve or yellow them.
• Caps and shirts should not be washed after signing. Store them flat in an archival box, padded with acid-free tissue at any folds, rather than hanging for years on a hanger, which stretches the shoulders. Check wool caps and sweaters for moth and carpet beetle. Do not use naphthalene mothballs in living spaces; they are a health hazard, and regular inspection and clean storage do the job.
• Framing. Use a framer who understands conservation framing: a deep shadow box with UV-filtering glazing, spacers so the glazing never touches the item, acid-free mount board, and a shirt held by stitching or supports rather than glue or pins. Hang it on an inside wall, away from kitchens, bathrooms and air-conditioner outlets.
• Records. Photograph each item on the day you get it, and note when, where and from whom the signature came. Keep receipts and any letters. A certificate of authenticity is only as trustworthy as whoever issued it, and forged signatures of famous cricketers are common.

The Indian climate

India is hard on all of this, and each region is hard in its own way.

• Monsoon humidity is the biggest threat. For weeks at a time indoor humidity in much of India stays well above the level at which mould grows, and a bag of kit or a box of scorebooks can bloom in days.
• Coastal cities such as Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata add salt air, which rusts helmet grilles, spikes, frame fittings and staples faster, and keeps humidity high for much of the year.
• North Indian summers bring dry heat well above 40°C in many cities, which cracks willow and leather, fades anything near a window, and bakes top-floor rooms under a sun-heated roof slab.
• Dust storms drive fine dust into cupboards, bags and the backs of frames.
• Power cuts switch off dehumidifiers and air conditioners, so humidity climbs exactly when you are not watching.
• Termites live in walls, floors and wooden furniture. Look for their thin mud tubes, keep boxes off the floor, and do not store a cherished bat at the back of an old wooden almirah without checking it.

The affordable answers work. A digital hygrometer, costing a few hundred rupees (2026), tells you the real humidity in a cupboard; without one you are guessing. Silica gel in an airtight plastic box creates a small dry space for scorebooks, photographs and records. Use enough of it, and prefer the orange indicating type, which changes colour as it absorbs moisture. Older blue indicating gel contains a toxic cobalt compound, so handle it with care. Recharge gel by drying it in an oven at the temperature the pack gives, and let it cool in a sealed jar before use. Never seal something damp into a box; dry it first. For a larger collection, an electronic dry cabinet of the kind sold for cameras holds a set humidity.

Do not dry bats and leather too far. Silica-gel boxes suit paper and photographs. Willow and leather want moderate, steady humidity, not a desert, or they crack.

Disaster planning

Floods destroy what sits on the floor, so keep boxes on shelves and never in a basement or a ground-floor store in a flood-prone area. Decide in advance what you would save first: the irreplaceable scorebooks, photographs and signed items. Keep an inventory with photographs for insurance, and check whether a household policy covers valuable memorabilia at all.

Stage 17Parsi Pioneers and the Bombay Tournaments

Cricket came to India with the British: with sailors, soldiers, merchants and officials of the East India Company. An account from 1721 describing English sailors playing on the coast near Cambay, in Gujarat, is often cited as the earliest record of the game in the subcontinent. By the end of the eighteenth century a cricket club was playing in Calcutta. For decades, though, the game in India was played by Europeans, for Europeans.

The Parsis take up the game

The first Indians to adopt cricket in an organised way were the Parsis of Bombay. A merchant community with close commercial ties to the British, they began playing on the open maidans of the Bombay Esplanade in the middle of the nineteenth century, and the first Parsi clubs were founded in that period; the Orient Club is usually dated to 1848. The game suited a community that valued Western education and wanted standing in the colonial city, and it spread quickly through Parsi schools and families.

The Parsis were ambitious. In 1886 a Parsi team toured England, the first team from India to do so. It lost most of its matches, but it returned in 1888 a much stronger side, with the fast bowler Dr M. E. Pavri as its leading wicket-taker. By around 1890 Parsi teams in Bombay were good enough to beat a visiting English amateur side.

From the Presidency match to the Pentangular

From the 1890s the annual Presidency match in Bombay pitted the Europeans against the Parsis, and drew large crowds. Other communities followed the Parsis into the game and into the tournament. The Hindus joined in 1907, making it the Triangular; the Muslims in 1912, making it the Quadrangular; and a side called The Rest, drawn from Christians, Jews and others, in 1937, making it the Pentangular. Each community built its own gymkhana, or sports club, several of them along the Bombay sea front, and the matches became the great sporting events of the western Indian calendar.

The tournament's strength was also its weakness. Teams chosen by religion suited colonial ways of seeing Indian society, and as the independence movement grew, many Indians objected to cricket that divided players by community. Gandhi was among the critics. The Pentangular was played for the last time in 1946.

Princes and patrons

Alongside the Bombay communities stood the princes. K. S. Ranjitsinhji, later the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, played Test cricket for England from 1896 and was one of the most admired batters of his age; India's national first-class championship is named after him (see Stage 22). His nephew K. S. Duleepsinhji also played for England. Rulers such as the Maharaja of Patiala paid for tours, coaches and grounds, and princely patronage shaped who played, who captained and who was chosen until well after independence.

Stage 181932: The First Test and the Long Apprenticeship

India was admitted to the Imperial Cricket Conference, as the ICC was then called, in 1926. The Board of Control for Cricket in India was formed in December 1928 to run the game nationally, and plans for a Test tour of England followed.

Lord's, June 1932

The 1932 touring party was led by the Maharaja of Porbandar, but he stood down from the Test side. India's first Test began at Lord's on 25 June 1932, captained by C. K. Nayudu, a powerful batter from central India. England, under Douglas Jardine, won the match. The Indian fast bowlers Mohammad Nissar and Amar Singh impressed English observers with their pace and movement, and the performance earned India further tours.

India's first home Test was played at the Bombay Gymkhana in December 1933, and in that match Lala Amarnath scored India's first Test century.

Politics, princes and patience

Captaincy in the early decades often followed social rank rather than merit, most notoriously on the 1936 tour of England under the Maharaja Kumar of Vizianagram, when Lala Amarnath was sent home in a still-disputed row over discipline. Great batters such as Vijay Merchant and Vijay Hazare emerged, but India won no Test in its first twenty years.

The first wins

The breakthroughs came after independence. India beat England at Madras in February 1952, with the left-arm spinner Vinoo Mankad bowling England out, to record its first Test victory. Later that year India won its first Test series, at home against Pakistan, who were playing their first Test series. The first series win abroad came in New Zealand in 1967–68, under the captaincy of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi.

Then came 1971. Under Ajit Wadekar, India won a Test series in the West Indies, where the young Sunil Gavaskar made a spectacular debut series, and a few months later won in England, where the leg-spinner B. S. Chandrasekhar bowled India to victory at The Oval.

The spin tradition

Through the 1960s and 1970s India's strength lay in spin. Four bowlers in particular, Bishan Singh Bedi (left-arm orthodox), Erapalli Prasanna and S. Venkataraghavan (off-spin) and B. S. Chandrasekhar (leg-spin), gave India an attack unlike any other, on pitches that increasingly helped them. The legacy runs through every generation since, from Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh to Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

Stage 19The Road to Lord's, 1983

India came late to one-day cricket and did not take to it. At the first World Cup, in England in 1975, India's only win was against East Africa. In the opening match, chasing England's large total, Sunil Gavaskar batted through all 60 overs for 36 not out, an innings that showed how far India was from understanding the format. At the 1979 World Cup India lost every match, including one to Sri Lanka, who had not yet been granted Test status.

A different kind of team

Something was changing. Kapil Dev, from Haryana, made his Test debut in 1978: a genuinely fast-bowling all-rounder in a country that had almost stopped producing fast bowlers, and a hitter who played with a freedom Indian batting had rarely shown. Around him gathered a team of all-rounders and medium-pacers, cricketers such as Mohinder Amarnath, Madan Lal, Roger Binny and Kirti Azad, who were well suited to one-day cricket on English pitches.

Few gave them any chance at the 1983 World Cup in England. The West Indies had won the first two tournaments and were overwhelming favourites.

The tournament

India began by beating the West Indies at Old Trafford, a result many dismissed as a fluke. The turning point came later, against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells, where India slumped to 17 for five wickets. Kapil Dev came in and made 175 not out, then a World Cup record, and India won. Famously, no television footage of the innings exists, because the match was not filmed. India went on to beat Australia to reach the semi-finals, and beat the hosts, England, at Old Trafford to reach the final.

The final

The final was played at Lord's on 25 June 1983. India batted first and were bowled out for 183. It looked far too few against a West Indies batting order that included Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd. But India's medium-pacers bowled straight and tight on a helpful pitch. Richards was caught by Kapil Dev, running back from midwicket, off Madan Lal, and wickets fell steadily. The West Indies were all out for 140, and India won by 43 runs. Mohinder Amarnath, who had also starred in the semi-final, was named player of the match.

What 1983 changed

The effect at home was enormous. Colour television was spreading through Indian cities in the early 1980s, and the victory made one-day cricket the country's most-watched sport. India won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia in 1985, and in 1987 India and Pakistan co-hosted the World Cup, the first time it was held outside England. Sponsors followed the audiences, and India began its rise to become the financial centre of world cricket.

Stage 20The Modern Era, to 2024

This stage picks out the landmarks of the decades after 1983, stopping at the end of 2024.

Tendulkar and television

Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut in Pakistan in 1989, aged sixteen, and retired in 2013 with the most runs in both Test and one-day international cricket. He made the first double century in a men's one-day international, in 2010, and was the first player to score a hundred international centuries.

Satellite television arrived in the 1990s, and broadcasting money transformed the board's finances. The decade ended in crisis, when the match-fixing scandal of 2000 led to bans for several international players, including the former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin, whose life ban was later set aside by a court.

Rebuilding

Under Sourav Ganguly, India rebuilt. In 2001 at Eden Gardens, India followed on against Australia and won, after V. V. S. Laxman made 281 and Rahul Dravid 180 in a partnership that lasted almost a full day, and Harbhajan Singh took a hat-trick in the series. In 2003 India reached the World Cup final, losing to Australia.

T20, the IPL and 2011

In 2007 India sent a young side under M. S. Dhoni to the first World Twenty20 in South Africa, and beat Pakistan in the final in Johannesburg. The win changed the board's view of the short format. In 2008 it launched the Indian Premier League, a T20 competition between city franchises that buy players at auction. The Rajasthan Royals won the first season. The league survived a spot-fixing scandal that led to the suspension of two franchises, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. By the end of the 2024 season Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians had won five titles each, and Kolkata Knight Riders three.

On 2 April 2011, at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, India beat Sri Lanka to win the World Cup at home for the first time. Dhoni finished the match with a six. Yuvraj Singh was player of the tournament, and Tendulkar, playing his sixth World Cup, was carried around the ground by his teammates.

Winning abroad, and in Barbados

India won the Champions Trophy in England in 2013. Under Virat Kohli, India won a Test series in Australia for the first time in 2018–19, and won there again in 2020–21, completing the series with a victory at the Gabba in Brisbane in January 2021 with a side missing many senior players. India reached the first two finals of the World Test Championship, in 2021 and 2023, and lost both, and reached the final of the 2023 World Cup at home in Ahmedabad, where Australia won.

Then, on 29 June 2024 in Barbados, India under Rohit Sharma beat South Africa by seven runs to win the T20 World Cup, their first global title since 2013. The last over turned on a boundary catch by Suryakumar Yadav. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja retired from T20 internationals soon afterwards.

Stage 21Women's Cricket in India

Women's cricket in India was organised, played and paid for largely by its own players for more than thirty years before the national board took responsibility for it. Its rise since then is one of the most important stories in the Indian game.

The WCAI years

The Women's Cricket Association of India (WCAI) was formed in 1973. India played its first women's Test in 1976, against the West Indies, under the captaincy of Shantha Rangaswamy, and India hosted the women's World Cup in 1978. The left-arm spinner Diana Edulji became one of the defining players of the era and a long-serving captain. Money was scarce. Accounts of the period describe tours run on very small budgets, with players often meeting costs themselves, and little attention from the press.

Into the board

In 2006 the WCAI merged into the BCCI, following a similar merger of the men's and women's governing bodies at international level. The move brought contracts, better facilities and a proper domestic structure, though progress was uneven at first.

Two players carried Indian women's cricket across the merger and beyond. Mithali Raj, a batter from Hyderabad who made her international debut in 1999, retired in 2022 as the leading run-scorer in women's international cricket. Jhulan Goswami, a fast bowler from Chakdaha in West Bengal, retired the same year as the leading wicket-taker in women's one-day internationals.

Finals, and a turning point

India reached the final of the women's World Cup in 2005, losing to Australia, and again in 2017, losing to England at Lord's by nine runs. The 2017 tournament was the turning point in public attention. In the semi-final against Australia, Harmanpreet Kaur made 171 not out, one of the great one-day innings, and the final drew a very large television audience in India.

In 2020 India reached the final of the T20 World Cup in Melbourne and lost to Australia. In 2022 the team won silver at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and the board announced that its women and men would receive equal match fees for international matches. In 2023 India won the first Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup, and the senior side won gold at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

The Women's Premier League

In 2023 the board launched the Women's Premier League (WPL), a franchise T20 competition. Mumbai Indians won the first season and Royal Challengers Bangalore the second, in 2024. The league gave domestic players professional contracts, big crowds and experience alongside leading overseas players, and girls across India now grow up seeing women's cricket on prime-time television.

Stage 22The Board and the Domestic Game

The board

The Board of Control for Cricket in India runs the national teams and domestic cricket. It is not a government department. It is an independent body whose members are state and other cricket associations, and it is a full member of the ICC. Its income from broadcasting and the IPL makes it the richest board in the game, which gives it great influence in world cricket.

That power has drawn scrutiny at home. After the IPL spot-fixing scandal, the Supreme Court appointed a committee led by the former Chief Justice R. M. Lodha, whose recommendations on the board's governance, reported in 2016, led to years of court supervision, a Committee of Administrators, and a revised constitution.

The domestic structure

The board's men's domestic season is built around state and institutional teams, with competitions in each format.

The Ranji Trophy

The Ranji Trophy, named after K. S. Ranjitsinhji (see Stage 17), is the backbone of Indian first-class cricket. Teams represent states, some cities and institutions such as Railways and Services. Mumbai, formerly Bombay, has won it more than forty times, far more than any other side. In recent years smaller teams have broken through: Vidarbha won in 2017–18 and 2018–19, and Saurashtra and Madhya Pradesh have also won. In 2018–19 the competition expanded to include teams from the north-eastern states and other new members.

School, club and the nurseries

Beneath the board's competitions lie the leagues of the state associations, university and inter-school cricket, and famous local tournaments. In Mumbai, the Harris Shield inter-school tournament dates from the nineteenth century; in a match in 1988, the schoolboys Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli put on an unbroken partnership of 664. The city's Kanga League is played during the monsoon on wet, uncovered grounds, a severe test of batting technique. The board's National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru works with elite young players and injured internationals.

Stage 23Grounds and Stadiums

India's great grounds are part of its cricket history, and each has its own crowd, character and memories.

The historic grounds

Eden Gardens in Kolkata is one of the oldest and most famous grounds in the world, and has hosted Test cricket since 1934. It hosted the World Cup final of 1987, and its crowds are among the loudest anywhere. It was the scene of the 2001 Test against Australia described in Stage 20.

In Mumbai, the Brabourne Stadium, home of the Cricket Club of India, opened in 1937 and hosted Tests for many years. A dispute between the club and the Bombay Cricket Association over tickets led the association to build its own ground, the Wankhede Stadium, which opened in the mid-1970s, a short walk away. The Wankhede hosted the 2011 World Cup final.

The M. A. Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk in Chennai saw India's first Test win in 1952 and the tied Test against Australia in 1986, only the second tie in Test history.

In Delhi, the ground long known as the Feroz Shah Kotla, now the Arun Jaitley Stadium, is where Anil Kumble took all ten wickets in a Pakistan innings in 1999.

The new giants and the scenic grounds

The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, rebuilt on the site of the old Motera ground, is the largest cricket stadium in the world by capacity. The old Motera was where Sunil Gavaskar became the first batter to reach 10,000 Test runs, in 1987, and the new stadium hosted the final of the 2023 World Cup.

Other grounds are loved for their setting. The Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium at Dharamsala sits below the snow-capped Dhauladhar range, and is among the most photographed grounds anywhere.

Going to a match

Buy tickets only through official sellers and read their conditions, because security rules differ; bags, coins, lighters, food and bottles are often restricted. Arrive early, wear a hat and sunscreen in unshaded stands, drink water where it is sold, and plan your journey home after a night match.

Stage 24Gully Cricket as a Culture

For every Indian who has played on a proper pitch, many more learned the game in a gully: a lane, a building compound, a rooftop, a school corridor, or a patch of open ground between buildings. Gully cricket is not a lesser version of the real thing. For most people in India it is the real thing.

Making do

Gully cricket is built from whatever is to hand. The bat might be a proper willow bat, a cheap tennis-ball bat or a plank. The wicket might be three stumps, a pile of bricks, a pair of slippers, a crate, or three lines chalked on a wall. The ball is a tennis ball, a rubber ball or a tape-ball (see Stage 13). The boundary is the neighbour's wall.

House rules

Because every gully is a different shape, every gully has its own rules, argued over, agreed and passed down.

A culture of its own

Gully cricket mixes ages, from small children to grown men and, increasingly, girls. It teaches the whole game in miniature: negotiation, umpiring, captaincy, and the art of arguing that you were not out. In towns and villages, tennis-ball tournaments are often played at night under temporary floodlights, sometimes for prize money, with local commentary over loudspeakers. On Sunday mornings in the cities, maidans fill with overlapping matches.

Children imitate the commentators they hear, in Hindi, English and regional languages, describing their own shots as they play them, and many cricketers who later played for their states and for India began in exactly these lanes.

A shrinking space

Open ground is disappearing from many Indian cities, lost to buildings, parking and traffic, and paid box cricket enclosures have taken over some of the gully's role. The lane game persists wherever there is a wall, a ball and an afternoon.

Glossary

A

Anti-scuff sheet — a clear adhesive film fitted over a bat's face to hold the surface together and keep moisture out. [Stage 15]

Appeal — the fielding side's request to the umpire for a decision, without which a batter is not given out. [Stage 12]

Archival box — a storage box made of acid-free, lignin-free board, safe for paper and photographs. [Stage 16]

B

Balancing the book — checking at each over that the scorebook's figures add up to the team total. [Stage 10]

Bouncer — a short, fast delivery that rises towards the batter's upper body or head. [Stage 5]

Box — the protective abdominal guard worn by batters, keepers and close fielders; also, box cricket, played in netted enclosures. [Stages 8 and 13]

Bye — a run taken when the ball passes the batter without touching bat or body. [Stage 2]

C

Creases — the white lines at each end of the pitch: bowling, popping and return creases. [Stage 2]

D

Declaration — a captain's voluntary ending of their side's innings. [Stage 3]

Draw — a long-form match that ends without a result because time runs out. [Stage 3]

Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method — the statistical system used to reset targets in rain-affected limited-overs matches. [Stage 14]

E

Economy rate — runs conceded per over. [Stage 11]

English willow — the light, springy willow used for most high-quality bats. [Stage 9]

Extras — runs not scored off the bat: byes, leg byes, wides and no-balls. [Stage 2]

F

First-class cricket — long-form domestic cricket of recognised standard, such as the Ranji Trophy. [Stage 3]

Foxing — brown spotting on old paper caused by mould and oxidation. [Stage 16]

Free hit — a delivery after a no-ball in limited-overs cricket from which the batter cannot be out in most ways. [Stage 12]

G

Googly — a leg-spinner's delivery that turns the opposite way to the leg-break. [Stage 6]

Guard — the position a batter marks on the crease, such as middle or leg. [Stage 4]

Gully cricket — informal cricket played in lanes, compounds and open spaces. [Stages 13 and 24]

Gymkhana — a sports club; in Bombay, the community clubs of the early tournaments. [Stage 17]

H

Hygrometer — an instrument that measures relative humidity. [Stage 16]

I

Inner gloves — thin cotton gloves worn inside batting or keeping gloves to absorb sweat. [Stages 7 and 15]

K

Kashmir willow — denser, harder, cheaper willow from the Kashmir valley. [Stage 9]

Knocking in — compressing the fibres of a new bat's face and edges with a mallet before use. [Stage 15]

L

LBW — leg before wicket, a dismissal when the ball would have hit the stumps but struck the batter. [Stage 2]

Leg bye — a run taken after the ball strikes the batter's body rather than the bat. [Stage 2]

Linear scoring — recording every ball in sequence, so an innings can be reconstructed. [Stage 10]

List A — domestic one-day cricket of recognised standard. [Stage 3]

M

Maidan — an open ground in an Indian city, used for many matches at once. [Stage 17]

Maiden — an over from which no runs are charged to the bowler. [Stage 10]

Mixed action — a bowling action in which hips and shoulders point different ways, linked with back injuries. [Stage 5]

N

Net run rate — runs scored per over minus runs conceded per over, used to separate teams in tournaments. [Stage 11]

No-ball — an illegal delivery, penalised with a run and bowled again. [Stage 2]

Not out — a batter still in at the end of an innings; the innings adds runs but not a dismissal to the average. [Stage 11]

O

Off side — the side of the field the batter faces when taking a stance; the other is the leg or on side. [Stage 7]

Over — a set of six legal deliveries from one end. [Stage 2]

P

Pentangular — the Bombay tournament between five community teams, played until 1946. [Stage 17]

Photographic Activity Test (PAT) — a standard test for materials safe to use in contact with photographs. [Stage 16]

Pick-up — how light a bat feels in the hands, which depends on balance as well as weight. [Stage 9]

Playing conditions — competition rules that add to or adjust the Laws. [Stage 2]

Popping crease — the line behind which a batter is safe from being run out or stumped. [Stage 2]

Powerplay — a period of limited-overs cricket with restrictions on fielders outside the circle. [Stage 3]

R

Ranji Trophy — India's national first-class championship. [Stage 22]

Raw linseed oil — the oil used, sparingly, to treat English willow bats. [Stage 15]

Reverse swing — swing with an older ball that moves towards the shinier side. [Stage 5]

S

Silica gel — a drying agent used in sealed boxes to lower humidity. [Stage 16]

Splice — the joint where a bat's handle fits into the blade. [Stage 15]

Strike rate — for batters, runs per hundred balls; for bowlers, balls per wicket. [Stage 11]

Stumped — dismissed when the keeper breaks the wicket while the batter is out of their ground. [Stage 2]

T

Tape-ball — a tennis ball wrapped in electrical tape, used in informal fast-paced cricket. [Stage 13]

Test cricket — international long-form cricket of up to five days. [Stage 3]

Toe guard — a rubber or resin cap protecting the end grain at the bottom of a bat. [Stage 15]

Twenty20 — the format in which each side bats for 20 overs. [Stage 3]

W

Walking — a batter leaving without waiting for the umpire's decision. [Stage 12]

Wide — a delivery the batter could not reasonably reach, penalised with a run and bowled again. [Stage 2]

Workload — the number of deliveries a bowler bowls over time, managed to prevent injury. [Stage 8]

Y

Yorker — a delivery pitched at the batter's feet. [Stage 5]

Further Reading and Organisations

Laws, scoring and umpiring

• Marylebone Cricket Club, The Laws of Cricket, in the current edition, with the MCC's own explanations and examples.
• Tom Smith's Cricket Umpiring and Scoring, the long-established guide to interpreting the Laws, in its latest edition.
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, published annually since 1864, for records, scorecards and statistics.
• Online statistical databases such as ESPNcricinfo's Statsguru and CricketArchive, for scorecards and career records.

Playing and captaincy

• Bob Woolmer and Tim Noakes, Bob Woolmer's Art and Science of Cricket (2008).
• Mike Brearley, The Art of Captaincy (1985).

The Indian story

• Ramachandra Guha, A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport (2002).
• Mihir Bose, A History of Indian Cricket (1990, later revised).
• Boria Majumdar, Twenty-Two Yards to Freedom: A Social History of Indian Cricket (2004).
• Richard Cashman, Patrons, Players and the Crowd: The Phenomenon of Indian Cricket (1980).
• Karunya Keshav and Sidhanta Patnaik, The Fire Burns Blue: A History of Women's Cricket in India (2018).
• Sunil Gavaskar, Sunny Days (1976).
• Sachin Tendulkar, with Boria Majumdar, Playing It My Way (2014).
• Rahul Bhattacharya, Pundits from Pakistan (2005).

Organisations

• International Cricket Council (ICC), the world governing body, based in Dubai.
• Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), custodian of the Laws, and the MCC Museum at Lord's.
• Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), headquartered in Mumbai, and its National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.
• State cricket associations, such as the Mumbai Cricket Association, the Cricket Association of Bengal, the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association and the Karnataka State Cricket Association, which run leagues, umpiring and coaching locally.
• Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, a British society for scorers, statisticians and historians.
• Association of Cricket Officials, the England and Wales body for umpires and scorers, whose training materials are widely used.
• Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), whose conservation centres can advise on paper, photographs and textiles.
• National Archives of India, New Delhi, a reference point for the care of paper records.

Image Sourcing Sheet