A socio-historical analysis of the development of cricket in England since 1800.

Few histories of modern sports have attempted to follow the historical-sociology method advocated by Abrams (1982). Three exceptions to this are the works of Dunning and Sheard (1979), Hargreaves (1986) and Guttmann (1978), all of whom attempt to use different theoretical perspectives in order to reveal the social development of a sport or sport in general. After making a detailed analysis of each theory, an attempt was made to test the applicability of each theory, in this case to the particular example of cricket. An in depth study was conducted of the history of the game and its developments. Chapter Two deals with the game from its folk beginnings until 1870, Chapter Three with the years 1870 to 1945, and Chapter Four with the post World War II era. A particular 'turning point' was identified in each period and was given special consideration. In Chapter Two this revolved around thedevelopment of the laws of the game, in particular those surrounding bowling techniques. Chapter Three focused on the Bodyline controversy, and Chapter Four on the Packer Affair. It was hypothesised that, unless cricket could be proved to be a unique case, each of the theories should be able to account for, and perhaps even predict, the game's development during each period and, in particular, the relevant turning point for that period. From this analysis it was discovered that each of the theories was able to explain certain areas of the socio-historical development of cricket but that, at the same time, they were insufficient to explain others. Cricket did indeed appear to be the exception to many of the rules each author had formulated. These deficiencies seemed to occur because of the limits placed on each theory by their respective theoretical perspective. Such theories, however, are only able to operate because they are based around a specific methodology and any attempt at analysis is possible only because of the limits placed upon each theory. It was suggested therefore that future work might involve the development of an eclectic theory although this in itself is problematical.