At hunting chase, or nimble race,
How featly her could prick it.”
The same historian of our games doubts not that cricket derived its origin from the ancient game of club-ball, the patronymics of which being compounded of Welsh and Danish (clwppa and bol) do not warrant his conclusion, the Saxon being an elder occupant of our island. The circumstance, however, of there being no illustration extant—no missal illuminated with a group engaged in this king of athletic games, as is the case with its plebeian brother, the club-ball; also from its constitution being of a more civil and complicated character, we may rationally infer that it is the offspring of a more polite, at all events of a maturer age, than its fellow. The game of club-ball appears to have been no other than the present well-known bat-and-ball, which, with similar laws and customs prescribed in the playing at it, was doubtless anterior to trap-ball. The trap, indeed, carries with it an air of refinement in the “march of mechanism.”
They who are acquainted with some of the remote and unfrequented villages of England, where the primitive manners, customs, and games of our ancestors survive in the perfection of rude and unadulterated simplicity, must have remarked the lads playing at a game which is the same in its outline and principal features as the consummate piece of perfection that at this day is the glory of “Lord’s,” and the pride of English athletæ;—I mean the one in which a single stick is appointed for a wicket, ditto for a bat, and the same repeated, of about three inches in length, for a ball. If this be not the original of the game of cricket, it is a plebeian imitation of it.
The constitution of this pastime has undergone considerable alterations and improvements since it has become a favourite and fashionable recreation. Even till as late as the year 1770, for instance, the wicket had consisted of two stumps, when a third, the centre one, was added:—a decided improvement; seeing that it multiplied the chances to the batter of being bowled out, consequently increased the difficulty of his position, and thereby exalted his maintaining it for any length of time into the greater merit: for, under the old system, if the ball passed between the stumps, the batter was not considered out; under the improved system, such an event cannot happen; for the three stumps are not pitched at so great a distance from each other as to allow of the transit of the ball without knocking off the bale, which decides the fate and existence of the bats-man. The bale too, which crowns the stumps, formerly consisted of a single piece of wood, and therefore required a considerable concussion of the ball to remove it, without which the batter cannot be declared out; it is now divided in the centre, and consequently a very slight agitation of either of the outside stumps will displace the one half resting upon it; and this is equally fatal to the batsman as if the two were knocked off.
The formation of the bat has also undergone considerable change and improvement. In an old code of “the Laws of Cricket, revised at the Star and Garter, Pall-mall, on February 25, 1774, by a committee of noblemen and gentlemen,” the rules and directions are prefaced by a wood-cut of the bat then in use, by which it appears that it was curved, and the face flat.
The modern bat is not only perfectly upright, but its face is convex, which again increases the difficulty to the player; for, in striking the ball, unless he meet it directly in the centre of his bat, the chances are many, that, from the convexity in the face of the bat, the ball will fly off in a diagonal line, and the player may be caught out. The mode of holding the bat has changed with its alteration of form; the chief injunction now being to a young player to keep his bat as upright as possible.
The regular and full game of cricket is composed of twenty-two players, eleven in each party. Each party also selects an umpire, to whom all disputes are referred; who decide whether a player be out or not; and from whose judgment there is no appeal.
The wickets are pitched opposite to each other, upon the most level and advantageous ground, and twenty-two yards asunder. They must stand twenty-seven inches out of the ground, and the bales must be eight inches in length. In a line with the wickets, a mark is cut in the turf, three feet in length, which is termed the bowling crease; and at right angles with this is a short line, called the return crease. The bowler, in delivering his ball, is compelled to have one foot before, and the other behind this crease; and if he fail, it is the duty of the umpire at his wicket to call out—“No ball!” in which case, the batter may strike it, and obtain what advantage he can, and if he be bowled out, it is not reckoned. A good bowler is a most valuable member of the game, and one on whom success mainly depends. The ball must not weigh more than five ounces and three quarters, nor less than five ounces and a half.
The bat must not be wider than four inches and a half; its height, exclusive of the handle, should be twenty-one inches. There is no absolute law respecting the height of the bat; this, however, is found to be the most convenient.