It may come as a surprise to those who have not learned the history of cricket, but it is now believed that Cricket really started 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 taken up as an adult game until the start of the 17th century.
The first documented reference to the game in the history of cricket is to be discovered in the records of a 1598 court case concerning a disagreement over a school’s ownership of a plot of land. A 59-year old coroner, John Derrick, testified that he and his school friends had played ‘creckett’ on the site fifty years earlier.
The school was the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, and Mr Derrick’s report proves beyond reasonable doubt that the game was being played in Surrey around 1550.
The first mention of it being played as an adult sport 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 recent press coverage of the influence of gambling upon the result of cricket matches, it is surprising that historically, gambling played a very substantial part in the growth of the game in England. Cricket had certainly become a major 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 arrangement 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 experts 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 first years of the 19th century.
It might come as a surprise 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 following 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 become the most well-known match of all time which gave rise to The Ashes.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with the London 2012 Olympics mascot. Click a link if you are interested in the 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.