How Cricket Evolved

England, captained by Douglas Jardine, packed the leg-side field and aimed fast rising deliveries at the batters' bodies, a plan built mainly to restrain Don Bradman. The Australian press coined the nickname.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Bradman had piled up runs in the 1930 Ashes, so Jardine's plan was built specifically to deny him room and time against pace aimed at the body. Other Australian batters were bruised as a by-product.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Larwood was the spearhead, genuinely quick and accurate, with the left-arm Voce in support. Rhodes, Verity, Hobbs and Sutcliffe were spinners or batters, not part of the pace attack.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Short-pitched bowling itself was legal. The grievance was that the tight leg-side cordon turned every defensive or evasive stroke into a catching chance, forcing a choice between wicket and safety.

Source: Wisden · applied

The Australian Board of Control cabled the MCC calling the bowling unsportsmanlike; the MCC replied defending its players and offering to call off the tour. Governments became involved before the wording was softened.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The 1935 change did not yet limit the leg-side field. It let umpires step in when they judged the bowling a systematic attempt to intimidate or hit the batter, leaving the call with the officials.

Source: Wisden · applied

The 1935 wording relied on umpires' judgement. It took until 1957 for the Laws to add a countable cap on the leg-side cordon, closing the loophole that had made the leg-theory field so effective.

Source: Wisden · applied

Playing conditions cap bouncers per over, and umpires still police repeated short bowling at a lower-order batter as intimidatory, a direct line back to the Bodyline debate.

Source: ICC playing conditions · applied

Larwood felt he had only followed his captain's instructions and would not sign an apology. He was left out of the Test side from then on and later emigrated to Australia.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Everything Jardine's side did sat within the letter of the Laws of the time. The episode is cited whenever a within-the-rules tactic is judged against the spirit of the game and the lawmakers rewrite the rule.

Source: Wisden · applied

When an uncovered pitch got wet and the sun then came out, the surface turned gluey and the ball lifted and spat. Batting on a "sticky" was one of the hardest tasks in the old game.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The tacky surface gripped a spun ball and made it climb, so slow bowlers could be almost unplayable. A side with a strong spinner held a big edge whenever rain hit an uncovered pitch mid-match.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

A captain might bat first and hope rain caught the opposition on a sticky, or declare early to bowl at them on a worsening surface. Reading the weather was a core captaincy skill.

Source: Wisden · applied

Before 1979 for Tests, and 1982 for all first-class cricket, the surface was routinely left open to the sky during a game, so a shower could hand one side a huge advantage within an hour.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

With state pitches covered from 1934-35, the rain-affected surface became rare in Australian domestic cricket a generation before England, where uncovered pitches were only phased out gradually.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Removing the sticky wicket took away the sudden, drastic surfaces that produced cheap dismissals, so scores became more predictable and top-order averages rose over the following decades.

Source: Wisden · recall

On covered, drier surfaces the ball turns more slowly and predictably, so orthodox finger-spin lost some of its bite. Wrist-spin and reverse swing became the more prized skills.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

With the pitch to be covered whenever rain threatened, a ground's covering gear and the speed of the crew deploying it became a real factor in whether play could go on.

Source: Wisden · recall

With covering, the day-four pitch is a slow evolution of the one at the toss, not a lottery decided by a passing storm, so the toss matters but rarely settles the match on its own.

Source: Wisden · applied

The case is that weather-affected surfaces force batters to adapt and give bowlers more to work with, producing more rounded cricketers. Critics counter that it reintroduces luck and danger.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Packer wanted exclusive rights and, turned down in favour of the incumbent, signed many of the world's best players for his own televised competition run outside the official structure.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Leading cricketers of the mid-1970s were paid modestly with little security. Packer's contracts offered several times their board earnings, which is why established stars took the risk.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

WSC dressed its teams in colours with a white ball under lights, a package that looked radical in 1978 and became the standard for one-day and, later, T20 cricket.

Source: Wisden · recall

Day-night cricket with a white ball and floodlights was trialled by WSC at Sydney in 1978 and drew big crowds, proving that play into the evening could work commercially.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Before WSC, coverage used cameras at one end, so half the overs were shot from behind the batter. Packer's team put cameras at both ends plus stump microphones, the template for modern broadcasts.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The establishment treated WSC as a pirate venture and left its players out of official Tests. Legal action in England found such blanket bans unlawful, weakening the boards' hand.

Source: Wisden · applied

The Australian board settled with Packer, granting Channel Nine the broadcast and promotion rights it had originally sought. With that won, the breakaway was closed and players returned.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

To encourage attacking play WSC used fielding-restriction circles, keeping a set number of fielders inside the ring for part of the innings, the ancestor of the modern powerplay.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Rather than discarding Packer's ideas, the boards adopted day-night one-dayers, coloured kit, sharper marketing and better contracts, so the format survived even though the competition did not.

Source: Wisden · applied

WSC tied the game's income and scheduling to broadcast value and paid players to match. Historians mark it as the moment TV, not gate money or tradition, set the direction of the game.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

With the Melbourne Test of the 1970-71 Ashes abandoned without a ball bowled, the boards arranged a one-day match on the last scheduled day to give the crowd a game. It was a hit.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Australian domestic cricket used eight-ball overs then, so the first ODI did too. Six balls an over only became the single global standard at the end of the 1970s.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The 1975, 1979 and 1983 World Cups were all 60 overs a side, played in daytime with a red ball and white clothing. The cut to 50 overs came at the 1987 tournament.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Shorter daylight on the subcontinent in 1987 prompted the reduction to 50 overs, which then stayed as the permanent one-day international length.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

England moved from four to five to six balls an over by 1900; Australia, New Zealand and others used eight-ball overs for long spells. Six became universal at the end of the 1970s.

Source: Wisden · applied

Australia used eight-ball overs in Tests from 1936-37 to 1978-79 (and briefly in 1924-25), then went back to six from 1979-80; the 1980 code of the Laws made six balls the single standard.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Limited overs put a premium on quick running, athletic fielding and players who both bat and bowl usefully, skills that could be carried lightly in a timeless match.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Under the back-foot rule some bowlers landed the back foot legally but "dragged" and released the ball well down the pitch. Judging the front foot at the popping crease fixed the release point.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Powerplays force a set number of fielders inside the circle for defined overs, so the captain manages phases of the innings rather than setting one field for the whole fifty overs.

Source: ICC playing conditions · applied

Players raised on limited overs brought faster scoring, sharper ground fielding and better running into the five-day game, so Test run rates climbed steadily from the 1980s on.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Home umpiring was not corrupt, but touring sides felt marginal calls tended to favour the hosts. Pressure for neutral officials grew through the 1980s as replays exposed more errors.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Before 2002 only one of the two on-field umpires in a Test was independent. The Elite Panel made both neutral and turned umpiring into a salaried, full-time job for a small travelling group.

Source: Wisden · applied

Facing fast bowling on lively pitches in WSC, batters such as Dennis Amiss adopted full helmets in 1977-78. Within a decade the helmet was normal kit across the professional game.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The death of Phillip Hughes, struck in a Sheffield Shield match in November 2014, led England and Wales to require helmets built to a British Standard for batters, keepers standing up and close fielders.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The ECB launched the Twenty20 Cup between the counties in 2003 to bring new spectators to weekday evening cricket. It spread worldwide within a few years, and the IPL followed in 2008.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Australia met New Zealand at Auckland in a light-hearted fixture, with retro kit, before T20 internationals were taken seriously. The first World T20 followed in 2007.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Players comfortable improvising against the field in T20 carried ramps, reverse sweeps and high strike rates into the longer game, pushing Test run rates up and, at the extreme, producing "Bazball."

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Adelaide Oval hosted the inaugural pink-ball Test in 2015, Australia beating New Zealand. The pink ball was chosen for visibility under lights, though its swing and wear at twilight remain talking points.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

A red ball becomes hard to pick out under lights against a dark sky, so a pink ball with an extra lacquer coat is used. Its behaviour differs from red, which is why teams prepare specifically for it.

Source: ICC playing conditions · applied

The Hundred gives each side 100 balls, with bowlers delivering in sets of five or ten and a maximum of 20 balls each. It fields eight city-based teams and runs men's and women's events together.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall