Possession (sports) determined by several methods, including a coin flip (American football and cricket), home team status (baseball), or by giving the teams an equal opportunity to physically take possession; this may be called a dropped-ball (association football), a ball-up (Australian rules football), a jump ball (basketball), or a face-off (hockey). In some timed sports, the team with possession may try to "run time off the clock" by keeping the ball and not attempting to score, in order to deny the opposing team possession. A shot clock speeds gameplay by requiring teams to attempt to score within a certain period of time
Sport in the United Kingdom Prior to the English Civil War and the Commonwealth, all available evidence concludes that cricket had evolved to the level of village cricket only where teams that are strictly representative of individual parishes compete. The "strong teams" of the post-Restoration mark the evolution of cricket (and, indeed of professional team sport, for cricket is the oldest professional team sport) from the parish standard to the county standard. This was the point of origin for major, or first-class, cricket. The year 1660 also marks the origin of professional team sport. Cricket had become well-established among the English upper class in the