As one of the most widely watched sports in the world, cricket is a worldwide phenomenon. It is watched and played to some extent across the globe, but has the focus of its popularity in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, and South Africa. The history of the sport can solidly be traced back to as early as 1550, with less substantial reports taking it back as far as 1300. This makes it one of the oldest surviving sports in the world, with only boxing being traceable back into more distant history.
The earlier versions of cricket are only mildly different to its modern form. The sport has always used a bat, ball, and some form of wickets, but tended to be a far more gentle game in its earlier years. The ball was initially thrown underhanded, rolling on the ground towards the batter, and tended to be thought of as a relaxing way to spend time with children. It was not until the 1600s and 1700s that the game really began to take off as a professional sport.
Cricket in the 1700s
Throughout 1700 the sport underwent major changes, including the introduction of the ball being thrown towards the batsman, as apposed to being rolled. This major evolution sent cricket into frenzy, with new bats being designed, new protective gear introduced, and a whole lot more fans being interested. Later, in the 1800s, the three stump wickets of modern cricket would be introduced. Wickets had been only a single stump up until this time.
Modern Cricket
Today, of course, cricket bowlers send the ball hurtling towards the batsman in an over-handed toss, the sight of which can be rather alarming. This style of bowling only developed in the early 1900s, and is thought of as the point when cricket began to resemble its modern form. The three stump wicket system remains, as well as a very similar bat design. Only minor changes occurred over the 1900s, into the 2000s.
Cricket Bet Making
One of the main fuels for cricket’s enduring popularity is its tendency to attract bet makers. Throughout the 1600s the sport was commonly bet on, often by well to do gentlemen in very high stakes situations. This is thought to be one of the main reasons cricket grew at the phenomenal rate it did, and became so widely accepted.
Betting on cricket remains popular to this day, only, of course, with far more convenient means to do so. The vast majority of online bookmakers offer mobile cricket betting options such as found in iPhone betting. There are a number of bets that can be placed, with the most popular being a simple prediction of which team will win. More focused bets involve predicting the number of runs that will be achieved by a winning team, as well as how many wickets the team will have remaining. A more recent rise in less mainstream bets has also become popular, which might include predicting which players will hit sixes, which players will get injured, and even such bizarre which players will drop catches. Such novelty bets may only be offered by certain online bookmakers.
