Historical records suggest that the future English king, Edward II, engaged in the precursor of cricket, known as criedge, as early as 1301. Court documents from that era detail the royal expenditure of 100 shillings and 6 pounds on this and other sports games.
By 1598, a court document recorded the claim of 59-year-old John Derrick, stating that he played "crackett" during his school days in Guildford half a century earlier. It places the existence of cricket in England around 1550, initially as a children's game, later embraced by adults in English villages by 1610. Tragically, in 1664, Jasper Vinall died during a match between two Sussex teams after being struck in the head by a ball.
The late 17th century marked the transformation of cricket into an organized sport with betting on game outcomes. On June 7, 1697, the Foreign Post reported a cricket match in Sussex involving 11 players per team.
The 18th century witnessed cricket evolving into a national sport in England. The Hambleton Club, formed in 1760, held prominence until 1787. The Marylebone Cricket Club and Lord's Old Ground, established later, became leading entities in the cricket world.
The Sussex Cricket Club emerged in 1839, paving the way for regular inter-county matches. Since 1890, the annual County Cricket Championship has been a staple. The influence of cricket expanded globally, reaching India, North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, and Australia. The first international match occurred in 1844 between the US and Canadian teams.
William Gilbert Grace, a renowned player whose career spanned from 1865 to 1908, left an indelible mark with 54,896 runs, 126 centuries, and 2,876 wickets. In the interwar period, Australian Don Bradman emerged as the premier batsman with a remarkable strike rate of 99.94 in Test matches.
Today, cricket stands as the world's second most popular sport after football, governed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) with over 100 member countries, including 12 playing Test cricket. The Laws of Cricket, first codified in 1744, have been shaped by the Marylebone Cricket Club since 1767 at Lord's Cricket Ground, London. Game formats range from the swift T-10 lasting 90 minutes to the enduring test formats spanning several days.
Cricket's historical significance includes its inclusion in the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, and in 2023, the International Olympic Committee decided to reintroduce cricket in the 2028 Summer Olympics.
