CRICKET......

History of cricket

First Grand Match of Cricket Played by Members of the Royal Amateur Society on Hampton Court Green

The sport of cricket has a known history beginning in the late 16th century. Having originated in south-east England, it became the country's national sport in the 18th century and has developed globally in the 19th and 20th centuries. International matches have been played since 1844 and Test cricket began, retrospectively recognised, in 1877. Cricket is the world's second most popular spectator sport after association football. Governance is by the International Cricket Council (ICC) which has over one hundred countries and territories in membership although only twelve play Test cricket.

First-class cricket" was not officially defined until May 1894 and became effective from the start of the 1895 English cricket season.^[29]Cricket of a recognised first-class standard (i.e., in important matches) had, however, been recorded in England for two centuries before then, and in other countries from the middle of the 19th century. There is no official term for cricket of this high standard before 1895 and many loose terms were used for convenience including "first-class" itself and other adjectives like "major", "great" and "important", the latter being coined by the ACS for its A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863(1981).^[29] It is generally agreed by the main historical sources that the earliest known example of what was contemporarily called a "great match" was the one played for fifty guineas in June 1697 between two eleven-a-side teams at an unspecified location in Sussex.^[6] It is entirely feasible, and is indeed believed by some historians, that major matches were played for many years before 1697.^[30][31] In 1695, the English Parliament decided against a renewal of the 1662 Licensing Act and so cleared the way for a free press on the Act's expiry in 1696.^[32] The main reason for matches before 1697 being unknown is that, while the Licensing Act was in force, it effectively imposed censorship upon the press and sport was not deemed to be a suitable subject for newspaper coverage. After the restrictions were removed, sport was gradually introduced into the newspapers but it would be decades before coverage became anything substantial, let alone comprehensive.^[32]

From 1895, there is no question about first-class status because of the official definition.^[29] The concept became global from 1947 when it was re-defined by the ICC, although there has been hardly any controversy about match status outside Great Britain before 1947.^[33] Status of limited overs matches, which began in 1963, is governed by the official List A categorisation and there are similarly no issues about major Twenty 20matches. Although the experts are in general agreement about match status, there have been exceptions although these account for a tiny percentage of the total number of matches recorded. Apart from one tour of India and Ceylon by a privately organised team in the winter of 1930–31, all the "disputed" matches took place in England before 1895: see Variations in published cricket statistics for further information.

The list below is by no means exhaustive, but the works included are widely held in cricketing circles to be significant and substantial sources of information about the development of the sport from the end of the 17th century to the commencement of officially defined first-class cricket in 1895. These are widely used to determine the status of individual matches, teams, venues and players. In a more general sense, all of the sources listed in Bibliography of cricket, though again this is not an exhaustive list, are reliable but it should be noted that autobiographies and other works with a narrow scope are not necessarily suitable, certainly not if used in isolation, to determine match status.