Thanks for taking a look at my blog on sports geography. Over the next few weeks I'll be taking a look at the national sports in different countries, I'll look at how the sports originated and why they are the national sport of the country. Please feel free to comment and if you have any suggestions please feel free.
English National Sport
England play many sports and are one of the best teams in the world at some of them, for example, rugby union, soccer and have some of the best tennis players in the world. The national sport of England is in fact cricket. In case any of you are unfamiliar with the sport it is a bat and ball sport with 11 players per team. The pitch is circular in shape and has a 'crease' in the middle where the batsman stands, the bowler on the opposite team bowls the ball and the batsman must hit it. There are 3 sticks stuck in the ground at each end of the crease called stumps which the bowler tries to hit with the ball. If he does the batsman is out. the cricket crease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muttiah_Muralitharan.jpg)
Cricket can be traced back to Tudor times in the early 16th century in Tudor times. We know because evidence was given in a court case in 1598 about a game called 'creckett' being played in Guildford, Surrey around 1550.
the cricket crease