This is a list of ball games and ball sports that include a ball as a key element in the activity, usually for scoring points.
This is a list of ball games and ball sports that include a ball as a key element in the activity, usually for scoring points.
Netball is a ball sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of seven players. The primary objective is to shoot a ball through the defender's goal ring while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own. It is one of a few sports created exclusively for women and girls, and it remains primarily played by them, on indoor and outdoor courts, especially in schools, and most popularly in the Commonwealth of Nations.
According to World Netball, the sport is played by more than 20 million people in more than 80 countries. World Netball comprises more than 70 national teams organized into five global regions. Major domestic leagues in the sport include the Netball Superleague in Great Britain, Super Netball in Australia, and the ANZ Premiership in New Zealand.
Squash, sometimes called squash rackets, is a racket sport played by two (singles) or four players (doubles) in a four-walled court with a small, hollow, rubber ball. The players alternate striking the ball with their rackets, directing it onto the playable surfaces of the four walls of the court. The object of the game is to hit the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. There are about 20 million people who play squash regularly worldwide in over 185 countries. The governing body of squash, World Squash, is recognized by the International Olympic Committee, and the sport will be included in the Olympic Games, starting in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The Professional Squash Association (PSA) organizes the pro tour.
Polo is a stick and ball game that is played on horseback as a traditional field sport. It is one of the world's oldest known team sports, originating as Chovgan (Persian: چوگان) in ancient Persia over 2,000 years ago, and later adopted by the Western world from its modern form developed in India.
Polo has been called "The Sport of Kings" and has become a spectator sport for equestrians and high society, often supported by sponsorship. The progenitor of polo and its variants existed from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD, as an equestrian game played in Persia. From Iran, where the sport evolved and developed, the game became popular around the world, with well over 100 member countries in the Federation of International Polo, and is played professionally in 16 countries; it was also an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1936.
Harpastum, also known as harpustum, was a form of ball game played in the Roman Empire. The Romans also referred to it as the small ball game. The ball used was small (not as large as a follis, paganica, or football-sized ball) and hard, probably about the size and solidity of a softball, and was stuffed with feathers. The word harpastum is the latinisation of the Greek ἁρπαστόν (harpaston), the neuter of ἁρπαστός (harpastos), 'carried away', from the verb ἁρπάζω (harpazo), 'to seize, to snatch'.
This game was apparently a Romanized version of a Greek game called phaininda (Greek: φαινίνδα), or of another Greek game called episkyros (Greek: ἐπίσκυρος). It involved considerable speed, agility and physical exertion. The two teams needed to keep the ball on their side of the field as long as they could.