Cricket and Technology

Baseball (which has many similarities to cricket and both fall under the more specific category of bat-and-ball games, golf, hockey, tennis, squash, badminton, and table tennis are some of the other games in the "club ball" sphere that essentially involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement. In cricket, a significant distinction is that the batter must defend a stable target structure called the wicket, which was allegedly formerly a "wicket gate" used to herd sheep. The cricket historian distinguished three "groups" of "club ball" games: the "hockey group," in which the ball is driven to and from between two targets (the goals); the "golf group," in which the ball is driven toward an open target (the hole); and the "cricket group," in which "the ball is aimed at a mark (the wicket) and driven away from it." Cricket is usually accepted to have started as a kid's game in the south-eastern counties of England at some point during the Middle Ages. Despite assertions to the contrary, the oldest conclusive evidence of cricket play dates back to a court case in Guildford in January 1597 (Old Style, which corresponds to January 1598 in the contemporary calendar). The Old English word "cryce" (or "cricc"), which means a crutch or staff, is one potential origin for the sport's name. The word "criquet" appears to have meant a particular type of club or stick in Old French. Given the extensive commercial links that existed between south-east England and the County of Flanders at the time when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, it is possible that the name was derived from the Middle Dutch word "krick"(-e), which means "stick (crook)" and was in use in Flanders at the time.