A brief history of how the games dimensions came about
AR Littlewood14-Jun-2000The measurements of most sports are in round numbers, except for a few ofthose that have been converted to metric equivalents. The welter of precisemeasurements in cricket seems distinct, but in fact some have quite a simple origin.The earliest known Laws of Cricket, the “Code of 1744”, give the length of thepitch as 22 yards. Over the centuries the often vague and regionally differing Saxonlinear measurements becaine standardized to give a mile (a survival of the oldRoman measurement of 1,000 double paces) as equal to 8 furlongs (i.e. “furrowlong”) or 320 perches (also called rods or poles) or 1,760 yards (from the Old Englishgyrd that meant stick or twig) or 5,280 feet or 63,360 inches or 190,080 barley corns(e.g. in the thirteenth century a royal Assize of Weights and Measures prescribed”the Iron Yard of our Lord the King” at 3 feet of 12 inches or 36 barley corns).It will thus be seen that 22 yards is in fact one tenth of a furlong or length of afurrow. There was an equally vague Saxon square measurement of land, the hide(called also carucate, from the Latin for a plough, and ploughland) which was thearea required by one free family with dependents and that could be ploughed withone plough and 8 oxen in one year. This was in turn divided into four yardlands or100 acres, the definition of which was the amount of land that could be ploughed byone yoke of oxen in one day. In Norman times the acre became precisely defined as40 by 4 perches, thus preserving the shape of the Saxon strip-acre, i.e. one furlongby one tenth of a furlong. The cricket pitch is therefore simply the breadth of theSaxon strip-acre.It would be a mistake, however, to assume that cricket, which is believed tohave had its origins on the Weald that was used primarily as grazing ground forsheep rather than ploughland, necessarily took the length of its pitch directly fromthis source, although the largest Saxon mete-wand or measuring rod, the gad,continued in use into the early days of cricket and was one perch in length, i.e. onequarter of the breadth of a furrow. In 1610 Edmund Gunter, an Oxford trainedmathematician, now Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London, inventedas an instrument of measurement the chain, taking its length from the breadth ofthe furrow and dividing it into 100 links of 7.92 inches each (i.e. 4 perches [not 40 as stated by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 19,p. 729, which is the length of the furrow]; By 1661 use of this chain had becomesufficiently popular for the word to be used to designate the measurement itself}.This chain becamethe common measuring tool for land surveyors. We do not know when cricketersfirst wished to standardize their pitch, but in the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies at least pitches were often physically marked out with the use of Gunter’schain.The distance between the bowling crease and the popping crease (i.e. thecrease over which the bat could be popped for safety) is given by the “Code of 1744″as 46 inches (increased to 48 inches sometime before 1821). Before creases weremarked in whitewash in 1865 they were cut into the earth and were, as W.G. Graceremembered from his early days, one inch deep and one inch wide. With allowancemade of 1/2 inch from the centre of each crease the distance between the inner edgesof the creases was thus 45 inches, that is the length of an ell. This was anotherSaxon measurement that had been standardized by the time of Edward I whorequired that there should be an exact copy of his ell-wand in all the towns of hisrealm. It was used regularly for measuring cloth (hence its later name of clothyard), and indeed the king’s alnager had the duty of checking that all cloth for salewas one ell in width. It was thus a measurement that would have been veryfamiliar to the cricketing folk of the sheep-rearing Weald.The ell’s subdivision into 16 nails of 2 and 13/16 inches each probablyaccounts for the size of the early wicket. According to the “Code of 1744” “YeStumps must be 22 inches long, and ye Bail 6 inches”. P.F. Thomas (who wroteunder the pseudonymous H.P.-T.) convincingly argues that these figures are arounding off by the gentlemen of London of the earlier rustic measurement of 8nails by 2 nails, which would give a wicket of 22 and 1/2 by 5 and 5/8 inches. Theaddition of the third stump c. 1775 did not change the dimensions of the wicket butsince 1798 a series of alterations has brought them to the present 28 by 9 inches.The addition of the third stump did not immediately bring about the division ofthe single bail into two bails (first mentioned in the Maidstone edition of the Laws c.1786 but not in a reputable edition until the early nineteenth century. It isInterestIng that even in the 1950s bails were often sold as a single piece to be cut atthe discretion of the purchaser).There were no legal limits on the size of the bat until Shock White appearedin a match with a weapon the width of the wicket, unsporting behaviour that ledtwo days later to his opponents, the Hambledon Club, writing the following minute:”In view of the performance of one White of Ryegate on September 23rd that ffour(sic) and quarter inches shall be the breadth forthwith. – this 25th day of September1771″. It is signed by its scribe Richard Nyren and by T. Brett and J. Small andwas speedily accepted elsewhere, occuring already in the “Code of 1774”. TheHambledonians promptly made an iron gauge to check the implements of futureopponents, but unfortunately it has been lost since it was purloined by “a gentlemanwho took a fancy to it”. Other similar gauges were, however, manufactured, the oneat Sheffield Park once catching out W.G. Grace. Approximately 4 and 1/4 inches isthe standard width of all earlier known bats, the oldest being that owned by JohnChitty of Knaphill now in the pavilion at Kennington Oval that is dated to 1729.There is tenuous evidence for an earlier period. The Roman Catholic College ofStonyhurst removed to France and later Belgium during the religious persecution ofthe sixteenth century and kept up a form of cricket that it brought back to Englandwhen forced to move by the French revolution. A teacher who left the school in 1871remembers its bats as being blocks of probably alder wood about 3 feet long,”roughly oval in shape, about 4 and 1/2 in. wide and 2 in. thick”. This distinctiveStonyhurst cricket had remarkable wickets, stones about 17 in. high, 13 in. wideand 8 in. thick at the bottom.There has never been any limitation on the weight of the bat, one of 1771 weighinga monstrous 5 Ib.The “Code of 1744″ prescribes that ‘Ye Ball must weigh between 5 and 6Ounces”. Its circumference was not specified until May lOth 1838 when it was putas between 9 and 9 and 1/4 inches. This lack of precision corroborates what onemight suspect, that a ball was the weight and size found convenient and that thedifficulties of manufacture have precluded even today any precise specification.The size of the wicket and other laws have been frequently changed inattempts to be fair to both batsman and bowler. Is it not time for further revisionsof measurements? The principal problems today are the ease with which even mis-hitsgo to the boundary and the sharply rising bouncers from tall fast bowlers. It isimpossible to push back the boundaries at most grounds (though Kennington Ovaland Grace Road, Leicester, for instance, do not use all the available playing area forany one match), but a restriction on the weight of the bat would not only revivemore refined batsmanship but also once more enable slow bowlers to tempt batsmento their doom with catches in the deep. The length of the pitch was chosen bycricketers who bowled, that is propelled the ball under arm, and were on averageshorter than their modern counterparts who can hurl their missile from far abovetheir heads. Is it not time that the pitch should be lengthened, that the old Saxonstrip-acre should at last be left fallow ?