A 1793 depiction of a wicket match being played in front of Dartmouth College.[1]
Wicket or wicket ball was a historical American form of cricket played until the late 19th century.[2][3][4]
History
Wicket came to America from England most likely during the late 17th century.[5]George Washington played it once in 1778 during the Revolutionary War,[6][7] where it was pursued by soldiers in general as a way to maintain physical health.[8]
As the 19th-century rise of baseball, which had a far shorter playing duration than contemporary forms of cricket, threatened to see cricket overtaken as the most popular bat-and-ball sport in the country, American cricket fans sought for new ways to keep cricket relevant. In this context, wicket was pursued by some as a way to modify cricket to be higher-scoring and shorter in duration. However, it was rejected by many traditional cricket fans, and thus faded away, with its grip over even its stronghold of Connecticut disappearing by the turn of the 20th century.[5][9]
Rules
Wicket used a wicket which was much wider and shorter than a cricket wicket, and a bat that resembled a spoon. There were up to 30 fielders and 3 innings, making the game finish in an afternoon.[5]
The creases that batters had to run across to score runs were called "Tick Marks", scoring a run (which happened when the batters crossed each other running to the other wicket) could be called a "cross", and the cricket pitch where the ball was bowled was 75 feet (23 m) long[5] and called an alley. Run outs were known as "ticking [out]" the batter.[10] In some forms of wicket, a batter could be out in a way resembling leg before wicket if the ball hit them on the body (known as a "sham" or "shinning") thrice under certain circumstances.[11]
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