Write True or False against each of the following sentences.

A.

India joined the world of Test cricket before Independence.

B.

The colonisers did nothing to encourage the Parsis in playing cricket.

C.

Palwankar Baloo was India’s first Test captain.

D.

Australia played its first Test against England as a sovereign nation.

The Parsis were the first Indian community to take to cricket. Why?

The rivalry between the Parsis and the Bombay Gymkhana had a happy ending for the former. What does ‘a happy ending’ refer to?

Do you think cricket owes its present popularity to television? Justify your answer.

Why has cricket a large viewership in India, not in China or Russia?

What do you understand by the game’s (cricket) ‘equipment’?

How is Test cricket a unique game in many ways?

How is cricket different from other team games?

How have advances in technology affected the game of cricket?

Explain how cricket changed with changing times and yet remained unchanged in some ways.

In terms of the rules of the game, cricket has undergone lots of changes with changing times. From hockey-like bats to the straight bats that we know today; from bowling underarm to bowling through the air; from being an elite sport to becoming a game of the masses, cricket has changed a lot. Yet, in many ways it has also remained unchanged. This can be clearly seen by looking at cricketing equipment. Cricket’s most important tools are still made of natural, pre-industrial materials. The bat is made with leather, twine and cork. Even today, both bat and ball are handmade, not industrially manufactured. Unlike golf and tennis, cricket has refused to remake its tools with industrial or man-made materials such as plastic, fiberglass and metal. However, in the matter of protective equipment, cricket has been influenced by technological change. The invention of vulcanised rubber led to the introduction of pads in 1848 and protective gloves soon afterwards. The modern game is unimaginable without helmets made out of metal and synthetic lightweight materials.