Cricket India: A Brief History of Indian Domestic Cricket

2

Do You Know that Cricket India or the Game of Cricket Originated from India?

The Cricket India has a magnificent ancient history with established facts. Do you know it? Let us find out and deliberate at length on the subject.

The latest thinking on the history of cricket in India and its origin is that it may have developed out of ancient bat-and-ball games from the Greater Punjab (“Doab”) region of the Indian subcontinent straddling North India and Pakistan, which traveled through Persia by the 8th century or earlier.

Cricket nicknamed as ‘Gulli Danda’ or ‘ancient bat-and-ball’ and Chess nicknamed as Shatranj, both were the popular games of ancient India and they got into Europe from the Indian subcontinent.

Chess, the board game of the Indian warriors which became the Persian “shatranj” from the Indian “chaturanga”, and traveled via Constantinople into Europe. The nomadic Gypsies who wandered away from the Indian deserts through Turkey into Eastern Europe, and arrived there by the 10th century carried the game of Chess.

Team sports were, of course, not new to Europe. Team “ball” games had developed there since the ancient times.

The Greeks even played field hockey which they had learned from Egypt, and a throwing/fielding game called ephedrismos which used a wicket or stick, as a target for a cricket-ball-sized ball.

The Romans, too, played a number of ball games. Their sport looked like today’s rugby, soccer, and handball.

What came in from the East was the “bat”, i.e. a stick designed to hit an object like a ball or similar projectile, so it could be fielded. It is the Bat, the old “danda” of South Asia, that marks the beginning of early cricket which obviously finds its mention in the History of Cricket in India.

 

Cricket-in-India

History of Cricket  in India from Ancient Times

In the 8th century, the monk Eustatius Cardonius was demonstrating a new bat-and-ball sport he had picked up from farther east, to a conclave of cardinals in Florence, Italy.

This was perhaps the best example that History of Cricket source in India. By the 9th century, bat-and-ball games looking somewhat like cricket were being played in Italy, and also in Spain and Portugal.

The Church in Europe seems to have taken the lead in sponsoring these bat-and-ball sporting activities on their monastery lands, as part of community-wide celebrations following church services, perhaps at the beginning of “Sunday afternoon cricket” !!

The first authentic reference of Cricket being played in India can be traced back to 1721.

It says that it was played at Cambay, near Baroda in the year 1721.

The first club to promote Cricket and Football came into existence by the formation of Calcutta Cricket and Football Club which dates back to 1792.

History of Cricket in India affirms beginning of first-class modern cricket in 1964 which was played between the clubs of Calcutta and Madras.

As the Church expanded into the British Isles, these sporting activities entered Ireland and then Britain. They were soon integrated into these rural communities, becoming part of Christian life in those places by about 1000 AD.

Summarily, a study of the History of Cricket in India proves that it has been played on this continent from the times of Ancient India.
Courtesy:http://www.seattlecricket.com/history/earliest.htm

2 Comments
  1. Esther M. Williams says

    Still reached a small number of enthusiast for this blog in that respect there to make sure you for that reason greetings to make sure you just about anyone Document gave a talk to make sure you. They can be a awesome page regards just for stating this approach revealing knowledge.

  2. Proud_Indian says

    Yes, certainly cricket originated in India. In ancient India it was known as gulikakrida and in medieval times, in India, it became known as gend-balla, which is still commonly used in rural areas. Why do we continue to use a foreign term for what is an Indian game?

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.