Summary & Question-answers of The Chapter : 10- The Story of Cricket with the concerned video

The Story of Cricket Summary in English

Part I

Cricket is a very popular game today. It entertains and attracts the young and the old alike. It has left hockey, football and tennis far behind. This lesson traces the history of this sport.

Cricket grew out of the stick-and-ball games played in England 500 years ago. It is played with a bat which means stick or club. Till the 18th century bats were shaped like hockey sticks. The reason was that the ball was bowled along the ground.

The strange feature of cricket is that a test match can go on for five days, and still remain undecided. A football match is over in an hour-and-a-half.

Another notable thing of cricket is its pitch. It has to be 22 yards in length, but there is no limit on the dimension of the playing ground as in hockey or football.

Cricket grounds differ greatly in size. Laws of cricket were first drawn up in 1744. It has two umpires. The stumps are 22 inches high, and the ball across them is six inches.

The world’s first cricket club was organised in 1760. The bat was made straight. In 1774, the first leg-before law was published. Even today both the bat and ball are hand made. Once the bat was cut out of a single piece of wood. Now it consists of two pieces, made out of the willow wood. Plastic, fibreglass and metal are not used at all.

The pads were introduced in 1848, followed by gloves. The modern game is not imagined without helmets, made of light weight materials.

Part II

Indian cricket had its origin in Bombay. The Parsis were the first to adopt it. They founded the first Indian Cricket Club in 1848. It was funded by the Tatas and the Wadias. Initially they had some problem about the use of park or field.

Modern cricket is dominated by Test and One day internationals. C.K. Nayudu was an outstanding batsman of his times. He played for India in its first Test matches against England in 1932. India entered the world of Test Cricket in 1932, 15 years before it became an independent nation.

Part III

Television coverage changed cricket. It took the game to towns and villages. Children got the opportunity to watch International Cricket and learn how to play well. Cricket has got a global market. India has got the largest number of viewers for the game. Indian players are the best-paid and most famous in the game. They are paid professional. One day game has overshadowed Test Cricket.

Comprehension Check

Question1:

Cricket is originally a/an

Indian game.

British game.

International game.

Mark the right answer.

Solution:

2. a British game.

Question 2:

“There is a historical reason behind both these oddities.” In the preceding two paragraphs, find two words/phrases that mean the same as ‘oddities’.

Solution:

peculiarities

curious characteristic

Question 3:

How is a cricket bat different from a hockey stick?

Solution:

A cricket bat is thick and flat while a hockey stick is bent at the bottom.

Comprehension Check

Question 1:

Write True or False against each of the following sentences.

India joined the world of Test cricket before independence.

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

Palwankar Baloo was India’s first Test captain.

Australia played its first Test against England as sovereign nation.

Solution:

True

True

False

False

Check

Question 1:

A ‘professional’ cricket player is one who makes a living by playing cricket. Find the opposite of ‘professional’ in the last paragraph.

Solution:

Amateur

Question 2:

In “the triumph of the one-day game”, ‘triumph’ means the one-day game’s

superiority to Test cricket

inferiority to Test cricket.

achievement or success over Test cricket.

popularity among viewers.

Mark the right answer.

Solution:

4. Popularity among viewers

Question 3:

“ the men for whom the world is a stage”.

It refers to the famous cricket fields in the world.

It means that there are many cricket playing countries in the world.

It implies that cricketers are like actors and every cricket ground is like a stage on which the drama of cricket is enacted the world over.

Mark the right answer.

Solution:

3. It implies that cricketers are like actors and every cricket ground is like a stage on which the drama of cricket is enacted the world over.

Working with the Text

Question 1:

Name some stick-and-ball games that you have witnessed or heard of.

Solution:

Hockey, Polo, squash, golf.

Question 2:

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

Solution:

Parsis were in the close contact with the British because of their interest in trade. They were the first Indian community to westernise and went up taking up the game of cricket.

Question 3:

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

Solution:

‘Happy ending’ refers to the defeat of the Bombay Gymkhana by the Parsi club in a cricket match held in 1889.Q

Question4:

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

Solution:

Yes, cricket owes its popularity to television. It has expanded the audience of the game by taking cricket to villages and small town.

Children from these places now had the chance to learn the game seeing the international games and imitating their favourite cricketers.

Question 5:

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

Solution:

Cricket is not played in communist countries like China and Russia so it has less viewership there. India is one of the oldest cricket playing nation which further adds to its large viewership in the country.

Question 6:

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

Solution:

The accessories like bat, ball, stumps and bells are the equipment used in playing the game. Pads, helmets and gloves are protective equipment used while playing cricket.

Question 7:

How is Test cricket a unique game in many ways?

Solution:

Test cricket is unique because it can go on for five days and still can end with a draw. No other game requires even half of this time to finish. A football match is played for 90 minutes.

Even nine innings of a baseball match gets over less than what it takes to finish a one-day match.

Question 8:

How is cricket different from other team games?

Solution:

Cricket is different from other team games because in cricket, the length of the pitch is mentioned as 22 yards however, the shape of the ground could be oval or circular. There is no specific measurement for the size of the ground as well.

It is the only game played for five days and can end without a specific result. Unlike cricket, many other popular games like hockey or football follows certain specification for grounds

Question 9:

How have advances in technology affected the game of cricket?

Solution:

Advancement in technology has been used in manufacturing protective equipment in cricket. The newly invented vulcanised rubber was used in pads and gloves. The helmets are made up of metal and lightweight synthetic materials.