Single wicket cricket is a form of
cricket
Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
played between two individuals, who take turns to bat and bowl against each other. The one bowling is assisted by a team of fielders, who remain as fielders at the change of innings. The winner is the one who scores more runs. There was considerable interest in single wicket during the middle part of the 18th century when it enjoyed top-class status.
Almost never seen professionally today, it is most often encountered in local cricket clubs, in which there are a number of knockout rounds leading to a final. The exact rules can vary according to local practice: for example, a player might be deducted runs for an out rather than ending his or her innings. An innings typically is limited to two or three overs. When single wicket was popular in the 18th century, however, there was no overs limitation, and a player's innings ended only on his dismissal.
The BBC Radio 4 drama ''The Archers'' features a regular single wicket competition.
History
Single wicket has known periods of huge success when it was more popular than the eleven-a-side version of cricket. This was especially so among gamblers at the
Artillery Ground during the middle years of the 18th century. Star performers at the time included
Robert Colchin,
Stephen Dingate,
Tom Faulkner and
Thomas Waymark.
It was in a single-wicket match on 22–23 May 1775 that
Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
bowler
Lumpy Stevens beat
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...
batsman
John Small three times with the ball going through the two stump wicket of the day. As a result of Stevens' protests, the patrons agreed that a third stump should be added.
Despite this famous match, single wicket experienced a lull during the
Hambledon Era and in the early years of
Marylebone Cricket Club
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's, Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London, England. The club was the governing body of cricket from 1788 to 1989 and retain ...
(MCC), but its popularity soared again in the first half of the 19th century, when leading players like
Alfred Mynn and
Nicholas Felix took part in some significant matches. From about 1800 to the 1820s, single wicket matches were popular but riddled with gambling-related
match fixing.
With the rise of the
All-England Eleven and a growing interest in county cricket, single wicket lapsed again and has rarely been seen at the highest level since 1850, despite a brief revival in the 1960s. A single wicket competition called the Courage
International Batsman of the Year was held at
The Oval over two days in September 1979. The event was won by
Clive Lloyd, who beat
David Gower in the final.
The 2020
Ultimate Kricket Challenge was a form of single wicket cricket, in which players competed in head-to-head matches. Runs were scored by hitting into zones; and each player was assisted by a wicket-keeper and one other fielder when they were bowling, as well as being allowed a substitute bowler for up to 7 balls in each 15 ball innings. The inaugural tournament was won by
Rashid Khan, who defeated
Andre Russell in the final.
Alternative definition
In an 1831 issue of ''New Sporting Magazine'', "single wicket" cricket was not a one-on-one competition, but was defined as cricket with fewer than five players per team. In this modified form, runs could only be scored by hitting the ball to an area forward of the wicket, halving the zone in which runs could be scored. Otherwise the rules were similar to ordinary cricket, which the publication referred to as "double wicket".
John Thorn, the Official Baseball Historian for
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
, speculates that the baseball concept of
foul territory may have originated from this variant.
References
* ''More Than a Game'' by
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British retired politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. Following his defeat to Ton ...
* ''Scores & Biographies'' by
Arthur Haygarth
{{Forms of cricket
Forms of cricket
Cricket terminology