Cricket

Regional popularity: Asia, Australia, UK, Africa

Thanks to the British Empire, cricket has spread across the globe. References from various sources indicate that it may have been played as far back as the 16^th century. But it took a one more century to be fully completed and being codified. It was near around 1700’s.

Cricket is actually popular across through the ex-British colonies. We can name them particularly.

India and neighboring countries, Southern Africa, West Indies, the British Isles and the countries of Australasia.

The game is played with large teams and long range of time, sometimes up to 5 days in length. Previously and mostly matches are usually played by county or national teams. Though there have been some famous clubs across England, India and Australia.

In case of Cricket you can’t determine age old favorites. There is definite ups and downs in this sporting arena. Currently England Australia, India and South Africa can be considered as the top favorites.

The 2.5 billion Cricket fans are spread throughout the globe, mostly in Asia, UK, Australia and Africa. So, undoubtedly Cricket is at the 2^nd position in the list of top 10 most popular sports in the world.

Obviously Cricket is a bat and ball game played between two teams, each consisting of 11 players. A 22-yard rectangular long pitch is taken inside a particular diameter round field. Both the teams take it in turns to bat. The batting team attempts to score runs, while the fielding team tries to defend them within as less runs as possible. Each turn is known as an innings.

Three different formats are played in Cricket.

Test Cricket (5 days), ODIs (1day), and T20 (around 4hrs).

It is believed, after introducing the T20 format, Cricket has gained a lot more popularity across the world as it takes less time with complete entertainment.