The Seventeenth Century Game of Cricket: A Reconstruction of the Game

Terry, David P.

doi:10.1080/17460260009445828

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…There is no evidence that short-pitched fast bowling, where the bowler aims to bounce the ball high enough to strike the batter's head, appeared in the folk antecedents of cricket to which Stokvis refers. Prior to the 19th century, underarm bowling -first rolled along the ground to take advantage of the uneven pitch and latterly to enable the ball to deviate due to spin imparted on the ball -was the norm (Terry, 2000). Round arm and over arm bowling became legal in 1835 and 1864 respectively and their introduction was marked by some considerable debate; at this stage of cricket's development the control of violence did attain issue status within the game.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cricket and Civilizing Processes

Malcolm

2002

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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This article examines Ruud Stokvis's contention that the tendency of figurational sociologists to focus on violence and its control would be unproductive in the study of the development of non-contact sports such as cricket and that the formal organization and standardization of modern sports are their defining features. Following a brief outline of Elias's theory of civilizing processes, the relatively violent tenor of early (pre-1850s) cricket is demonstrated. An examination of the development of the game's structural features (laws, customs, physical environment) illustrates that processes relating to the standardization and national diffusion of cricket are highly interdependent with measures to control the level of violence in the game. Thus, previously described characteristics of the developmental processes of relatively violent sports such as football, rugby and boxing have parallels in, and similarities with, the non-contact sport of cricket.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cricket and Civilizing Processes

Malcolm

2002

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

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“…Whilst we know sufficient about early cricket, horseracing, and hare coursing to know they had similarities to their eighteenth-century equivalents much more research is still needed. 117 By contrast the nineteenth century has a very extensive historiography, and historians of sport generally agree that the middle years of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of a more recognisably modern, more achievement-oriented and commercial competitive sporting culture, though it can only briefly be sketched here. Competition grew more intense, more frequent, and for industrial workers, whether in factories, mines and other industrial complexes, sports were increasingly often more focused on the weekend.…”

Section: Championshipsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Forms of competition in proto-modern eighteenth-century English sport: a tentative typology

Huggins

2021

Sport in History

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Scholarship on sporting competition during the eighteenth century has been lacking, and its socio-cultural context is not yet widely understood. This paper moves consideration of sporting competition back to this important period of sporting 'proto-modernity'. It begins by setting it clearly in its cultural context, showing how while eighteenth-century English sporting culture gained increased elements of commonality, it was always differentiated by local, regional and sport-specific variations. It was increasingly commercialised, and linked to increased associativity and the popularity of wagering. The paper then attempts to build a tentative typology of the various forms of sporting competition then emerging, such as matches between two individuals, animals or groups; competitions where several individuals competed alongside each other to get a winner; elimination, knockout, or sudden death competitions; practice matches, unofficial competitions in which the aim was to prepare for future matches; the importance of challenges; the growing popularity of championships; and other aspects of competition. Finally, it provides a sense of the key changes and continuities in pre-and post-eighteenth-century competition to allow a sense of comparison.This essay examines competition forms in England in the eighteenth century, offering a deliberate narrowing of perspective upon a period for which research has made it increasingly clear that many of the sporting transformations that took place were very important, if not indeed critical, for sport. So, whilst recognising the wider contexts of physical education, human movement, and games, and interpenetration of their boundaries, they are not considered here.The period has been deliberately selected because the changes experienced over the longer eighteenth century created a phase of what has been called 'proto-modern sport', creating the competitive conditions which allowed

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