The History of Cricket

It may come as a revelation to those who have not studied the history of cricket, but it is now thought that Cricket really originated in Saxon or Norman times as a children's game played by children living in the area called the Weald of Kent in what is today Kent and Sussex in South East England . It was not adopted as an adult game until the start of the 17th century.

The first known allusion to the game in the history of cricket is to be found in the records of a 1598 court case concerning a disagreement over a school's ownership of a piece of land. A 59-year old coroner, John Derrick, testified that he and his school friends had played 'creckett' on the site fifty years beforehand.

The school was the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, and Mr Derrick's account proves beyond acceptable doubt that the game was being played in Surrey around 1550.

The first reference to it being played as an adult team game was in 1611, when two men in Sussex were prosecuted for playing cricket on Sunday instead of going to church. This was in the same year that a dictionary defined cricket as a boys' game and this implies that adult participation was a recent development.

With all the current press coverage of the pressure of gambling upon the result of cricket matches, it is surprising that historically, gambling played a very substantial part in the development of the game in England. Cricket had certainly become a serious gambling sport by the end of the 17th century.

There is a newspaper report of a "great match" played in Sussex in 1697 which was 11-a-side and played for the high stakes of 50 guineas a side. 50 guineas would be the equal of GBP5,000 to GBP 6,000 in today's terms.

The present day system of County teams came about as a result of wealthy gamblers forming their own teams in order to fortify their bets and started to employ local specialists from village cricket as the first professionals. It is believed that the first "County" game took place in 1697 between Sussex and another county.

Cricket was introduced to North America via the British colonies in the 17th century, and in the 18th century it spread to other regions of the British dominated world. It was introduced to the West Indies by colonists and to India by the British East India Company in the first half of the century.

The first colonists took it to Australia soon after 1788 followed by New Zealand and South Africa in the early years of the 19th century.

It might come as a shock to lots of people that the very first International cricket match took place between the United States and Canada in 1844 (Canada won by 23 runs) and the very first overseas tour was by a party of leading English professionals who toured North America in 1857.

The earliest English tour of Australia was in 1862, with the first Australian tour of England being by a team of Australian Aborigine players in 1868.

In 1877, an England touring team in Australia played two matches against full Australian XIs that are now thought of as the very first Test matches. The next year, the Australians toured England for the first time and were a magnificent success.

No Tests were played on that tour but more soon followed. At The Oval in 1882, there was played what was to be the most famous match of all time which gave rise to The Ashes.