"Cricket and its Legends"

 

Cricket and its Legends

 

What is cricket?

“Cricket is the game of gentleman”

Cricket is a game which is widely played all over the world. It is a game which is played between two teams 11 players each with a bat and a ball. It is the second most popular sport which is played all over the world. Facts and figures says that almost 120 million play this game that make him one of the greatest sport of the current era. The cricket game is divided into two half’s which are called innings. The team that scores more runs than the other one, wins the match.

Roles in Cricket

There are three major roles that play their part in a cricket game. These are Batsmen, Bowler and Fielder. The batsman is a person who come to crease with a bat and his main role is to score runs or to play the innings according to the situation of the match without being out in order to win the match. A bowler’s main role is to take wickets for his team or to defend the runs so they can resist the opponent’s team from scoring big runs. Another main role in cricket is that of fielders. Winning or losing a match in cricket is very much depends on your fielders. If you have good and athletic fielders you can save the score easily but if you don’t have good fielders it means you are giving the opponent team a chance to take the game away from you. Role of fielders is equally important as batsman and bowler.

First International Match

People started playing cricket properly in the era of British Empire. The first international game was played between USA and Canada in 1844. And the most astonishing thing about this is that both of these are not playing international cricket in today’s era due to lack skillful players. So officially first match played between USA and Canada and after that many other teams started visiting different countries for matches.

Formats of Cricket

Cricket has three main formats in today’s era which are One-day cricket, Test cricket, T20 cricket. Although another format may get international status is coming years and that is 10 overs cricket which is nowadays played in many countries. Officially when cricket starts it was only test cricket then it reduced 60 overs then to 55 overs and at last to 50 overs. Today fifty overs game is considered a proper one-day game.

World cups and trophies

As the other games like football, tennis, hockey etc. play world cup after some fixed years same like cricket world cup comes after 4 years which is a delight to watch. Fifty over world cup comes after 5 years and t20 world cup comes after 2 years. And another good news about cricket fans is that test cricket world cup is also started in the form of test championship which will last for 2, 3 years because each team will play series with each other team.

First world cup was played in 1975 which was 60 overs it was won by West Indies under the captaincy of Clive Lloyd who is one of the greats of the game

 

                                                                                                    

Successive world cup was also won by West Indies in 1979 again under the captaincy of this genius man. Till now 18 world cups of cricket has been played including both 50 over and 20 over in which most of them was won by Aussies.

 

Is Cricket the game of Genius?

The answer of this question is yes. Although every game needs the player to have sharp mind but cricket require a little bit more than that because u have to bowl and bat as well, choosing right option at the right time is the biggest test for captain. You can’t predict before the match even half of the game because one good over can change the game, one big wicket can change the result. And it has seen that genius minds had always won for their country. Now, we will discuss some shear genius men and legends with their achievements.

 

Some great Legends

“AB de Villiers”

One of the greatest batsman in current era is De Villiers. He has a lot of nicknames due to his inhuman batting skills. He is from South Africa. He is called the “Superman” of the cricket. He is also called Mr.360 due to his batting in which he always plays inhuman and extraordinary shots. He is an extraordinary player. He can win you a game from nowhere. He is the only player to score century after coming 38^th over.

 

Achievements

 

He is the player of all seasons and formats. He has the record of fastest century, half century and 150 in One day which is unbroken till now and looks like it will remain unbroken because scoring 37 ball hundred is like being superman. He is a type of player who can score fastest hundred and also score 40 odd on 200+ plus balls in test cricket .this is the thing which I said earlier is that he is the player of all formats depending upon the requirement of match. Due to his batting and captaincy skills he plays almost all the leagues of the world.

But the bad thing is that he announces retirement from cricket at a very young age of 34. Cricketers usually retires at age of 40. But he announces retirement too early that broke the hearts of many cricket fans. But the thing is why he announces retirement? He said “I wants the young talent to come up and take responsibilities I have done much I my career and I am happy from it”

“Sir Donald Bradman”

Sir Donald Bradman nicknamed “The Don” of the cricket by his batting. He is not one of the greatest but the greatest batsman of old era. No batsman was near to him in 1900 onwards. Although he was the son of descendent Englishman but he dedicates his life to Australian cricket. He made his team to won many Ashes series during his presence and he got many man of the match awards in these many matches. Now I will tell you why he is not one of the greatest but the greatest of all time is because he is the only player in history averaging 99.99. Yes, you hear it right. Maintaining 99.99 average in cricket in any format is not a piece of cake. It needs a lot of hard work and dedication to the game which he had in tons. Even maintaining this average in today’s batting era cricket is not easy. Legend in making batsman Virat kohli has 58 average in one day cricket and this Genius 

Aussies guy has 99 when they didn’t had proper batting equipment's. A shear genius he was.

 

 

                                         “Shoaib Akhtar” 

A dashing fast bowler with a gangster look and wavy hairs is a Pindi born cricket player. He idolizes Waqar younis another great of the game. He is known for his pace. He threatens the best batsmen of the cricket with his fiery bouncers and fully fired Yorkers he likes challenges and always challenge the batsman before bowling to him no matter who is the batsman his pace was like fire. Some scenes were caught when batsman refused to bat against him due to his pace which was a plus point for him and his team. But his career was short due to injuries, a fast bowler career is full injuries, but it has exceptional case and that is he was born flay footed he struggled in his whole career but still he manage to become the fastest bowler of all time and that is a very great and big achievement. Doctor said to him that you can’t bowl but he worked hard and showed them that with hard work you can achieve anything you wants.

 

Achievements

The speed master has a lot achievements in his career but the most important achievement is bowling the fastest ball of the world which is 161.3kmph and I think which an inhuman thing to do is. Many bowlers try to break him some reach near to him like 161.2kmph but still his record is unbreakable. He retires after the 2011 world cup after an emotional farewell speech.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                       “Imran Khan”

Imran khan is a Pakistani born natural leader who loves to lead the team. He remain the captain of Pakistan cricket team for many years in which Pakistani team exceeds a lot in international cricket. He is neither a batsman nor bowler but one of the greatest all-rounder of all time. He is a type of player who can hit sixes when needed coming down the order and also can take wickets when the team needs it. As I said he is a naturally born leader because he is now the Prime Minister of Pakistan. This is good for Pakistan in the field of sports, as a sportsman he knows the struggle of grass root level cricketers and could help the lower level to polish and bring new talent to the cricket team.

Achievements

The main achievement in his career is winning the world cup 1992 for Pakistan which was looking impossible because Pakistan lost straightway 2 matches entering the pool stage, they were nowhere near the favorites but the genius Imran Khan backed the players and said we would never go home without the trophy and the world sees how under the captaincy of this man Pakistan won the world cup.

 

 there are also some other cricketers which I didn't DISCUSS INFACT NOT SOME BUT MANY UNENDING list. Here I only discussed some batsmen's ,one bowler and an all-rounder........