Forms of cricket

Forms of cricket

There are many different types and grades of cricket; those played professionally at an international level are Test cricket, One Day International cricket and Twenty20 cricket.

Test cricket

Test cricket is a form of international cricket started during the 1876/77 English cricket team's tour of Australia. The very first Test match began on 15 March 1877; Australia won by 45 runs. The Test cricket series between England and Australia is now called The Ashes. Since then, over 1,800 Test matches have been played and the number of Test playing nations has increased to ten with Bangladesh, the most recent nation elevated to Test status, making its debut in 2000. Test matches are two innings per side, and are nowadays restricted to a maximum of five days. In the past, Tests have been played over three, four, or six days, and some have been "Timeless" - played to a finish with no maximum duration. Tests that are not finished within the allotted time are drawn.

One-day cricket

Limited overs matches, also known as "one-day cricket", were introduced in the English domestic season of 1963 in response to demands for a shorter and more dramatic form of cricket. One-day, single-innings, matches often took place before this, but the innovation was the limiting of each side's innings to an agreed number of overs (nowadays usually 40 or 50). The idea was taken up in the international arena in 1971, during England's tour of Australia, when a match was played on the scheduled fifth day of the rained-off third Test. The one-day game has since become a crowd-pleaser and TV-audience-generator across the globe, hastened in part by the success of the inaugural World Cup in 1975. The abbreviations "ODI" (One Day International) or sometimes "LOI" (Limited Overs International) are used for international matches of this type. Innovations have included the introduction of coloured clothing, distinct tournaments, and "day-night" matches (where play extends into the night under floodlights); together with frequent nail-biting finishes and the impossibility of either side opting to play for a draw, these have seen ODI cricket gain many supporters.

Twenty20 Cricket

A view of an international Twenty20 match (between England and Sri Lanka) at the Rose Bowl stadium. Twenty20 matches usually start in the evening and last around two-and-a-half to three hours.
Twenty20 matches usually start in the evening and last around two-and-a-half to three hours.

Twenty20 Cricket was first played in English domestic cricket in 2003 to popularise first-class cricket and attract more spectators. It has since spread to many other countries. A Twenty20 match consists of 20 overs for each side, a "free hit" after an illegal no-ball is bowled, short boundaries, batting-friendly pitches, and other rules designed to attract spectators who would not attend the slower-paced one-day games or test matches. The first men's Twenty20 international was between Australia and New Zealand in 2005, the first women's Twenty20 international having been between England and New Zealand in 2004. From 2007 to 2015 the Twenty20 World Championship will be held every two years; the first was staged in South Africa in 2007, and was won by India. It has an abbreviation as T20.