Although six-ball overs are now standard in all forms of cricket (except The Hundred), it was not always the case.
The first recorded instance of an over was four balls long, and it stayed like that until 1889 when it changed to five balls. Eleven years later, it was expanded to six balls. In countries like England, it has not changed since, except for a brief experiment in domestic cricket in the event of the Second World War.
Down Under it was different, however. In 1922/23, Australia began to play eight-ball overs and two seasons later New Zealand followed suit.
South Africa also used eight-ball overs from 1938 to 1958, and Pakistan as well for a four-year period in the mid-1970s.
The reason for the switch to an eight-ball over was to try and get more balls into a day’s play. Longer overs meant fewer changeovers and less delays, although it did impose additional demands on bowlers, especially quickies, as they had to learn to pace themselves for fears of overextending themselves and risking injury.
The end of the eight ball over though can be dated to 1979/80, when Kerry Packer’s Channel 9 took over the television rights for international cricket in Australia.
Packer had set up World Series Cricket as a direct rival to the status quo when his initial bid to stage the rights for international cricket was turned down. There was subsequent rapprochement with the Australian Cricket Board, with the latter in dire financial straits, but many Packer innovations stayed even when they made up.
These included coloured clothing, the white ball, protective helmets, field restrictions and games played under lights. Some of these were there before, but Packer made them mainstream.
And one of the casualties of the Packer revolution was the eight-ball over.
Channel Nine was a commercial station that made money from advertisements. Reducing the length of an over from eight to six balls meant more breaks, and hence more opportunities for the broadcaster to make money.
The move was by no means popular with the Australian public at the time, but six-ball overs have become the norm ever since.