New perspectives on the social history of cricket

Stone, Duncan

doi:10.1080/17430437.2012.637687

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“…The issue examined these changes and the perceived threats to older formats of cricket, offering useful insights into the organization and governance of cricket. Finally, the articles in the special issue edited by Duncan Stone (2012) scoped new perspectives in the social history of cricket. Given this lineage, it is perhaps more of a surprise that no special issue was produced for almost a decade, than the fact that this represents the fifth edition of Sport in Society dedicated to contemporary cricket.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cricket at the beginning of the long twenty-first century

Naha

Malcolm

2021

Sport in Society

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This article provides an introduction to the special issue, Cricket in the Twenty-First Century. It argues that cricket's struggle for global recognition and the shifting concerns about cricket's perceived 'character' provide two of the most significant meta-narratives to shape the game's historical and future development. However, in contrast to the degree of continuity these narratives appear to provide, the article argues that the game is currently undergoing a particularly rapid and radical phase of change. The contents of this special issue illustrate the processes that will dominate in the twenty-first century. These can be broadly categorised as the changing political economy of the game, the culturally-specific manifestations of cricket's political-economic landscape, and the intro-and retrospection within the English game. The article concludes with a state-of-the-art review of cricket scholarship, and some recommendations for future research agendas.An anthology of Wisden articles from 1978 to 2006 was named 'Cricket's Age of Revolution' (Moss 2006). If this phase saw a ground-breaking entanglement of cricket with commerce and mass media, leading to a restructuring of the game's ethos, governance, and consumption, changes more sweeping and far-reaching have taken place in the following years. India is now the epicentre of money and power in the game. We have seen both the resurgence of Test cricket (in some nations) and success of the Twenty20 experiment in expanding cricket's global reach and market. Women's cricket has taken giant strides (Velija 2015). Talks of mitigating discrimination of all sorts and enforcing the spirit of the game have intensified (Burdsey 2011). 'Fringe' nations like Bangladesh, Ireland and Afghanistan have proved to be strong competitors (Bandyopadhyay 2015). Phil Hughes' shocking death has linked cricket in to sport's concussion crisis (Malcolm 2020) and more general moves to take safety and injuries more seriously. Modern communication technologies, glamour and money have taken the consumption of cricket to unforeseen levels (Khondker and Robertson 2018). Frequent transformations in the game's format, style of play, presentation to the audience, and forms of consumption have changed what cricket looks and feels like. The emergent and open-ended character of these social processes suggests the potential to dominate the next phases of cricket's development. Making sense of these processes is the central aim of this special issue.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%