Ball Games

These are photographs of residents of Camphill Milton Keynes playing ball games on the grass area.

Ball games (or ballgames), also ball sports, are any form of game or sport which feature a ball as part of play. These include games such as football, cricket, baseball, basketball, and American football. Such games have diverse rules and histories and are of mostly unrelated origins. Ball games can be defined in several broad types:

• Bat-and-ball games, such as cricket and baseball.
• Racquet and ball games, such as tennis, squash and ball badminton.
• Hand and ball-striking games, such as various handball codes, rebound handball and four square.
• Goal sports, usually team sports such as basketball, water polo and all forms of football, lacrosse, and hockey (except ice hockey which is a goal sport but is played with a hockey puck).
• Non-racquet net sports, such as volleyball and sepak takraw.
• Target sports or precision sports, such as bowling, lawn bowls, croquet, and golf, as well as cue sports, including snooker, pool, and other forms of billiards (the sport of curling, which uses a stone rather than a ball, is classified with target or precision sports for some purposes).

Alex Fox