Cricket : Transition from Gentleman’s game to a power packed sport.
There are different types of sports across the globe. Footbal is a power packed game, chess is the game of intelligence and basketball is the game of enormous energy. But as an exception, cricket is renouned as ‘The Gentle Man’s Game’. The game started its course from England in the early 15th century and started spreadinhg across the globe. During the initial stages, there were no time limit for this game and as a result some people criticised cricket as, ‘The Idle man’s game’.
In the midst of 16th century, there held a cricket match between Australia and England. The game lasted for thirteen days and there was no result. Australian team had the cruise waiting in the port and was compelled to stop the play. This was the first unofficial draw in the cricket history. Due to the long length of the game, cricket experts reduced the length to five days when test cricket was born. Each team will be given two innings to play and this will declare the fate of the match. During the initial stages, test cricket got highly positive response, but later faded due to the number of draw matches.
After some years, in the latter half of 20th century, One day Cricket got introduced. This was a real turning point in the cricket history. Each team will be given 60 overs and the match will be over in a day. Benson and Hedges World cup attained much popularity and resulted in Cricket fever in the Indian Sub continent and in the Carribean Islands. First three editions of the World cup were completely ruled by the West Indies team under the leadership of Clive Lloyd. In the 1983 World Cup, Kapil’s devils won the cup for India. In 1987 coloured jerseys were introduced and the game was shortened to 50 overs. Australia and Pakistan won the world cup in 1987 and 1992 respectively. Then came another miracle in 1996, Small fish Srilanka under the dynamic captaincy of Arjuna Ranatunga won the world cup. Srilankan team also showed how to utilize the fielding restrictions in the initial overs. Sanath Jayasurya and Romesh Kaluvitharana became global stars after this world cup. Then Cricket world witnessed the ‘Kangaroo Magic’. Australia won the world cup three times in 1999,2003 and 2007. Only team which raised some sort of fighting spirit against them was India in 2003 under the meaverick leadership of Indian Tiger Saurav Ganguly. In 2011, Indian team under Mahendra Singh Dhoni again won the world cup after 1983. 2011 world cup was the example of immense popularity as millions flowed in ofiicial betting site, SBOBET. SBOBET offered live betting for all cricket fans which resulted in wide spread fever.
Cricket again got a reshape in to 20-20, where each team will play 20 overs each. This resulted in immense popularity among viewers as the game will be over in 3 hours. Players like Chris Gayle and Keiron Pollard added the colors with their exploding batting style. The introduction of IPL, Indian Premier League is a major milestone in cricket history. The Indian edition of EPL got positive reviews and became the best money puller in the world. SBOBET, the trusted betting site became a favorite spot for cricket lovers for the last couple of years. Sites including SBOBET also plays a crucial role in the increasing popularity and now countries like Afghanistan and Canada also started playing cricket.
”This was a gentleman’s game, but now this is a power packed game like football. It is not a day dream to a six over 120 metres, Chris Gayle is ready to hit that more than 130 metres. So why to hesitate, log in to SBOBET and bet for your favorite team.”