croquet, also called Lawn Croquet, popular outdoor game, played on a lawn or court, with long-handled mallets with which the players hit balls through a series of wickets, or hoops.
The game evolved from paille-maille (French: “pall-mall”), which was played in France at least as early as the 13th century and introduced into England in the 16th century. The game that became known as croquet combined the basic elements of paille-maille—running a mallet-driven ball through a hoop or hoops to touch a peg as a goal—into a somewhat more complicated sport involving a series of six or more hoops laid out in a pattern, which had to be run in a specified order.
In lawn croquet, the informal version of croquet that is played in the United States, nine wire hoops and two wooden stakes are placed on an area no more than 40 feet (12 m) wide and 75 feet (23 m) long. Each side has 32 points to make, 16 with each ball. The hardwood balls are solid or striped with colour; the mallets, also of hardwood, have handles approximately 30 inches (76 cm) long. As in other versions of croquet, the object is for a player to put the ball through all wickets, or as many as possible, before turning play over to his opponent.
In the United States, organized croquet was first sponsored by the National Croquet Association, established in 1882. At a tournament meeting in New York City in 1889, the letters c and t were dropped from the term croquet by some players, making the name roque. Roque courts and play differed markedly from Great Britain’s association croquet (q.v.) in having a clay surface and solid boundary walls.
Mark Waugh
Mark Waugh, in full Mark Edward Waugh, (born June 2, 1965, Canterbury, N.S.W., Austl.), Australian cricketer who, with his twin brother, Steve, dominated cricket in Australia in the 1990s.
Waugh—known as “Junior,” since he was born four minutes after his twin—broke into the Australian Test team as a replacement for his brother, scoring 138 on his debut in 1990. Although an inventive strokemaker with natural timing, he was at first out too often when well set to be considered a great batsman. A classic innings of 116 made in five hours against South Africa in Port Elizabeth seemed to herald a new stage in Waugh’s career, but a lean spell soon followed—notably on the Ashes tour (Australia’s long-standing Test competition against England)—and he was dropped from both Australia’s Test and One Day International (ODI) teams.
Waugh had returned to both teams by 1992. He earned a reputation as one of the best fielders in the sport, but it was his improved offensive play that garnered the most attention. At the 1996 Cricket World Cup, he scored three centuries (100 runs in a single innings). His image, however, became tainted when it was revealed in 1998 that he and fellow Australian cricketer Shane Warne had taken bribes from an Indian bookmaker four years earlier. (The two were secretly fined by the Australian Cricket Board soon after the bribes were given.)
He was a member of Australia’s World Cup-winning team in 1999, and in 2001 he set the all-time record for catches in Test matches (which was since broken in 2009). Waugh retired from Test cricket in 2002 and from the sport entirely in 2004. After his retirement, he worked as a television sports commentator.
0 Comments