Cricket in 1864: Overarm bowling legalized

The object of cricket is simple to state: score more runs than the opposition. Two teams of eleven take turns batting and bowling across one or two innings each, depending on the format. The batting side sends two players to the crease at a time, and they accumulate runs until ten of the eleven batters are dismissed, the allotted overs expire, or the captain declares. The fielding side, led by its captain, bowls the ball and sets the field to take wickets and choke the flow of runs.

A contest is a duel between bat and ball repeated over after over. The bowler delivers six legal balls from one end, then a different bowler sends down the next over from the other end, and so the attack rotates while the batters try to score off every delivery. Runs come from running between the wickets or from boundaries; wickets fall by bowled, caught, leg before, run out, stumped, and rarer methods. The side that scores more runs, within the rules of its format, wins.

The pitch is a twenty-two-yard strip of prepared clay with a wicket at each end. A wicket is three vertical stumps topped by two small bails. Painted lines called creases mark the batter's and bowler's ground: the popping crease defines where a batter is safe and where a bowler must land his front foot. The bowler runs in and delivers from one wicket toward a batter defending the other. Everything in the game is organized around these two wickets and the strip between them.