Cricket was invented in vast fields of England, supposedly by sheperds who herded their flock.Later on this game was shown benovalency by aristrocrats, and now has strature of being Englands national game. After a century now, cricket stands in international arena, with a place of its own.

THE GAME

Cricket involves two teams with 11 players on each side. The captain who wins toss decides whether his team bats or bowls first. If they bat first , their aim is to score a lot of runs and make sure other team does not reach that score.

FORMATS OF THE GAME

Cricket is played in many formats , but most popular are TEST CRICKET and ONE DAY cricket. In TEST cricket game goes on for 5 days, with each team batting twice - if time permits.

ONE DAY is most popular format, with each team getting 300 balls to score runs. ANd other team tries to outscore them within same number of balls.

KEY PLAYERS

Three functions of players are 1. BATSMEN, 2. BOWLING 3. FIELDING.

1. Batsmen - one who scores runs of balls bowled by bowler.

2. Bowler - One who bowls, and tries to get batsmen "out"(dimissed from ground).

3. Fielder - Players (10) who assist bowler in achieving his goal, and prevent batsmen from scoring runs.

BATSMEN

The game of cricket mainly revolves around batsmen. Crowds love batsmen, especially when they wallop ball all over ground. Batsmen are ones who whip up hysteria in crowd, eveybody loves them, they are Don Juans of game.

Many batsmen are good, but only a few are great. Their style, their flair, talent is unique. To each his own - if I can quote this famous phrase.

From numerous batsmen, from 11 ICC (International Cricket Committee, London, UK) recognize , only a few achieve imortality. So what is thing that seperates boys from men?

Many factors go in deciding, or rather making of a great batsmen. A natural talent is most definate, a good coach (Achrekar who coached Sachin Tendulkar), and obviously performing at right time.

In my first article, Lets take a glimpse in life and times of Sir Donald Bradman, pioneer of batting flair.

SIR DONALD BRADMAN: THE AUSSIE ICON

Donald(Don) Bradman was born in 1908 in a small town, Bowral, (population 2000 people) near Sydney, Australia. He started playing cricket seriously when he was in his teens, before that it was just another game. His favourite past time was hitting golf ball with a cricket stump on to a tank. And this very "past-time" of his went a long way in improving his reflexes and co-ordinating his eye and hand movement.

Slowly with right breaks he got involved with playing cricket in school and local clubs, Scoring centuries (100 runs or more) with unfalliable regularity.

In 1920 he went with his father to see a test match at SCG (sydney cricket ground). After watching Charlie Mc Cartney score 170 runs , he said to his dad "I shall never be happy until I play on this ground."

This is a runners nightmare, and one that any serious runner has either experienced personally, or has watched another runner suffering.

Before we get into a self treatment for this painful situation, let's take a look at some basics. We are assuming that you know about keeping yourself hydrated, (and you do it, right?), and replacing lost electrolytes. You have read about carbohydrates & protein, and you eat properly. But what about stretching and working out muscle spasms as they develop?

I've watched serious athletes finish up a long run, stretch for 1-2 minutes, and leave. This is a big mistake! You need to take time to stretch all of muscles of your legs, and hips, after you finish your training run. It takes one full minute for a muscle to have a permanent stretch. That's 60 seconds per muscle, not for entire stretching process. Do your stretch slowly, allowing muscle to lengthen gradually, and by all means, don't bounce.

There are specific self treatments you can do for all the muscles of your legs, however this article will address calf muscles. In your calf you have two muscles, gastrocneimus ("gastroc" for short) and soleus. Most runners faithfully stretch gastroc by either keeping their foot flat and then bending their body forward and keeping their leg straight, or by standing on curb and dropping their heels toward street, while keeping their legs straight. I always advise against this second method of stretching because it is too severe, until after muscle has lengthened, for muscle to tolerate this much of a stretch. Stretching should be done gradually, increasing stretch every 15 seconds until you are stretching as far as you can anatomically bend your ankle, then hold it static for 60 full seconds.

The stretch that most athletes miss is one for soleus. Both gastroc and soleus insert into Achilles Tendon, and either one can cause tendon to tear if it is severely contracted. To add soleus stretch is very easy. Assume same flat foot position as you have for gastroc, and move forward (bending ankle), but now move your body back so you are also bending your knee. You will feel a totally different stretch. Do same thing, increase stretch every 15 seconds until your knee and ankle are bent as far as they can anatomically go, and again hold it for 60 seconds.