question_answer 3)

Test cricket is a unique game in many ways. Discuss some of the ways in which it is different from other team games. How are the peculiarities of test cricket shaped by its historical beginnings as a village game?

Answer:

Test cricket is a unique game in many ways and different from other team games.   (i) One of the peculiarities of test cricket is that a match can go on for five days and still end in a draw. No other modern team sport takes even half as much time to complete.   (ii) A football match is generally over in an hour and a half of playing time.   (iii) Even baseball a long drawn out bat and ball game by standards of modern sport, completes hire innings in less than half the time that it takes to play a limited overs match the shortened version of modern cricket.   (iv) Most of the team sports, such as hockey and football lay down the dimensions of the playing area cricket does not. Grounds can be oval like the Adelaide Oval or nearly circular like Chepauk in Chennai.   (v) Cricket began as a village game and crickets connection with the rural past can be seen in the length of a test match. Originally, cricket matches had no time limit. The game went on for as long as it took to bowl out a side twice because the rhythms of village life were slower and cricket rules were made before the Industrial Revolution.   (vi) In the same way, vagueness about the size of a cricket ground is a result of its rural origins. Cricket was originally played on country commons, unfenced land that was public property. The size of the commons varied from one village to another, so there were no designated boundaries or boundary hits.