The document traces the origins and history of cricket from its beginnings as a children's game in medieval England to its development into an international sport. It discusses how cricket spread globally through British colonial expansion in the 18th-19th centuries. The rules and organization of the game evolved over time, with county clubs forming in the 19th century and Test status granted to additional nations in the 20th century. The document also outlines some crises in the history of cricket, including the apartheid-related suspension of South Africa and the player rebellion due to low pay that led to the formation of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket competition in the late 1970s.

2. No one knows when or where cricket began but
there is a body of evidence, that strongly
suggests the game was devised during Saxon or
Norman times by children living in the Weald, an
area of dense woodlands and clearings in south-
east England that lies across Kent and Sussex. In
medieval times, the Weald was populated by
small farming and metal-working communities. It
is generally believed that cricket survived as a
children's game for many centuries before it was
increasingly taken up by adults around the
beginning of the 17th century.

3. The first definite reference to the game is found in a 1598 court case concerning dispute
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 account proves
beyond reasonable doubt that the game was being played in Surrey c.1550

4. Cricket was introduced to
North America via the English
colonies in the 17th century,
probably before it had even
reached the north of England.
In the 18th century it arrived
in other parts of the globe. It
was introduced to the West
Indies by colonists and to
India by British East India
Company mariners in the first
half of the century. It arrived
in Australia almost as soon as
colonization began in 1788.
New Zealand and South
Africa followed in the early
years of the 19th century.

5. The basic rules of cricket such as bat and ball,
the wicket, pitch dimensions, over's, how out,
etc. have existed since time immemorial. In
1728, the Duke of Richmond and Alan Brodick
drew up "Articles of Agreement" to determine
the code of practice in a particular game and
this became a common feature, especially
around payment of stake money and
distributing the winnings given the importance
of gambling.

6. The game continued to spread throughout
England and, in 1751, Yorkshire is first
mentioned as a venue. The original form of
bowling (i.e., rolling the ball along the
ground as in bowls) was superseded
sometime after 1760 when bowlers began to
pitch the ball and study variations in
line, length and pace. Scorecards began to be
kept on a regular basis from 1772 and since
then an increasingly clear picture has
emerged of the sport's development

7. Cricket faced its first real crisis during the
18th century when major matches virtually
ceased during the Seven Years war. This was
largely due to shortage of players and lack of
investment. But the game survived and the
"Hambledon Era" proper began in the mid-
1760s.
Cricket faced another major crisis at the
beginning of the 19th century when a
cessation of major matches occurred during
the culminating period of the Napoleonic
wars. Again, the causes were shortage of
players and lack of investment. But, as in the
1760s, the game survived and a slow
recovery began in 1815.

8. The game also underwent a fundamental change of organisation with the formation for the
first time of county clubs. All the modern county clubs, starting with Sussex in 1839, were
founded during the 19th century.
No sooner had the first county clubs established themselves than they faced what amounted
to "player action" as William Clarke created the travelling All-England Eleven in 1846.
Though a commercial venture, this team did much to popularise the game in districts which
had never previously been visited by high-class cricketers. Other similar teams were created
and this vogue lasted for about thirty years

9. Between May and The First ever International cricket game was between the
October 1868, a team USA and Canada in 1844. The match was played at the
of Australian grounds of the St George’s Cricket club in New York
Aborigines toured
England in what was
the first Australian
Image of the
cricket team to travel
1878
overseas.
Australian
cricket team
from the
State Library
of NSW
In 1859, a team of leading English professionals set off to
North America on the first-ever overseas tour and, in 1862,
the first English team toured Australia.

10. A major watershed occurred in 1890 when the official
County Championships was constituted in England. This
organisational initiative has been repeated in other
countries. Australia established the Sheffield Shield in
1892–93. Other national competitions to be established
were the Currie Cup in South Africa, the Plunkett Shield in
New Zealand and the Ranji Trophy in India.
W
. The period from 1890 to the outbreak of the First
G World War has become an object of nostalgia,
. ostensibly because the teams played cricket
G according to "the spirit of the game", but more
R realistically because it was a peacetime period
A that was shattered by the First World War. The
C era has been called The Golden Age of cricket
E and it featured numerous great names such as
Grace, Wilfred Rhodes, C B Fry, K S RanjitsinhiiK
and victor Trumper.

11. In 1889 the immemorial four ball over was
replaced by a five ball over and then this was
changed to the current six balls an over in 1900.
Subsequently, some countries experimented with
eight balls an over. In 1922, the number of balls
per over was changed from six to eight in
Australia only. In 1924 the eight ball over was
extended to New Zealand and in 1937 to South
Africa. In England, the eight ball over was
adopted experimentally for the 1939 season; the
intention was to continue the experiment in
1940, but first-class cricket was suspended for the
Second World War and when it resumed, English
cricket reverted to the six ball over. The 1947
Laws of Cricket allowed six or eight balls
depending on the conditions of play. Since the
1979/80 Australian and New Zealand seasons,
the six ball over has been used worldwide and
the most recent version of the Laws in 2000 only
permits six ball overs.

12. Test cricket remained the sport's highest
level of standard throughout the 20th
century but it had its problems, notably in
the infamous “Bodyline Series" of 1932–33
when Douglas Jardine’s England used so-
called "leg theory" to try and neutralise the
run-scoring brilliance of Australia's Donald
Bradman.
When the Imperial Cricket Conference (as it
was originally called) was founded in
1909, only England, Australia and South
Africa were members. India, West indies and
New Zealand became Test nations before the
Second World War and Pakistan soon
afterwards. The international game grew
with several "affiliate nations" getting
involved and, in the closing years of the 20th
century, three of those became Test nations
also: Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

13. The greatest crisis to hit international cricket was brought about by
apartheid, the South African policy of racial segregation. The
situation began to crystallise after 1961 when South Africa left the
Commonwealth of Nations and so, under the rules of the day, its
cricket board had to leave the International Cricket Conference
(ICC). Cricket's opposition to apartheid intensified in 1968 with the
cancellation of England's tour to South Africa by the South African
authorities, due to the inclusion of "coloured" cricketer Basil
D’Oliveira in the England team. In 1970, the ICC members voted to
suspend South Africa indefinitely from international cricket
competition. Ironically, the South African team at that time was Basil D’Oliveira
probably the strongest in the world.

14. The money problems of top cricketers were also the root
cause of another cricketing crisis that arose in 1977 when
the Australian media magnate Kerry Packer fell out with the
Australian Cricket Board over TV rights. Taking advantage of
the low remuneration paid to players, Packer retaliated by
signing several of the best players in the world to a privately
run cricket league outside the structure of international
cricket. World Series Cricket hired some of the banned
South African players and allowed them to show off their
skills in an international arena against other world-class
players. The schism lasted only until 1979 and the "rebel"
players were allowed back into established international
cricket, though many found that their national teams had
moved on without them. Long-term results of World Series
Cricket have included the introduction of significantly higher
player salaries and innovations such as coloured kit and
night games.

15. In the 1960s, English county teams began
playing a version of cricket with games of
only one innings each and a maximum
number of overs per innings. Starting in 1963
as a knockout competition only, limited overs
grew in popularity and in 1969 a national
league was created which consequently
caused a reduction in the number of matches
in the County Championship.
Although many "traditional" cricket fans
objected to the shorter form of the game,
limited overs cricket did have the advantage
of delivering a result to spectators within a
single day; it did improve cricket's appeal to
younger or busier people; and it did prove
commercially successful.

16. Limited overs cricket increased television
ratings for cricket coverage. Innovative In 1992, the use of a third umpire to
techniques that were originally introduced for adjudicate run out appeals with television
coverage of LOI matches was soon adopted for replays was introduced in the Test series
Test coverage. The innovations included between South Africa and India. The third
presentation of in-depth statistics and umpire's duties have subsequently expanded
graphical analysis, placing miniature cameras to include decisions on other aspects of play
in the stumps, multiple usage of cameras to such as stumpings, catches and boundaries.
provide shots from several locations around As yet, the third umpire is not called upon to
the ground, high speed photography and adjudicate lbw appeals, although there is a
computer graphics technology enabling virtual reality tracking technology (i.e., Hawk-
television viewers to study the course of a eye) that is approaching perfection in
delivery and help them understand an predicting the course of a delivery.
umpire's decision.

17. Cricket remains a major world sport in terms
of participants, spectators and media
Cricket's newest innovation is
interest.
Twenty20, essentially an evening
In June 2001, the ICC introduced a entertainment. It has so far enjoyed
"Test Championship Table" and, in enormous popularity and has
October 2002, a "One-day attracted large attendances at
International Championship matches as well as good TV audience
Table". Australia has consistently ratings. The inaugural ICC Twenty 20
topped both these tables in the World Cup tournament was held in
2000s. 2007 with a follow-up event in 2009.
The ICC has expanded its development program with The formation of Twenty20 leagues in
the goal of producing more national teams capable India – the unofficial Indian Cricket
of competing at Test level. Development efforts are League, which started in 2007, and
focused on African and Asian nations; and on the the official Indian Premier League,
United States. In 2004, the ICC Intercontinental Cup starting in 2008 – raised much
brought first-class cricket to 12 nations, mostly for speculation in the cricketing press
the first time about their effect on the future of
cricket.

19. India
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India cricket crest
Test status granted 1932
First Test match v England at Lord's, London, 25–28 June 1932
Captain M. S. Dhoni
Coach Duncan Fletcher
5th (Test)
Official ICC Test, ODI and T20I ranking 3rd (ODI)
3rd (T20) [3]
Test matches 468
– This year 9
Last Test match v England at Mumbai, 23–27 November 2012
Wins/losses 115/149
– This year 3/4
As of 26 November 2012

20. "Men in blue" redirects here. Men in blue may also refer to
Police
The Indian Cricket Team is the
national cricket team of India.
Governed by the Board of Control for
Cricket in India (BCCI), it is a full
member of the International Cricket
Council (ICC) with Test and One Day
International (ODI) status.
Although cricket was introduced to
India by European merchant sailors in
the 18th-century and the first cricket
club in India was established in
Calcutta in 1792, India's national
cricket team did not play their first
Test match until 25 June 1932 at
Lord's.They became the sixth team to
be granted Test cricket status.

21. In their first fifty years of international
cricket, India proved weaker than Australia
and England, winning only 35 of the 196
test matches.[3] The team, however,
gained strength near the end of the 1970s
with the emergence of players such as
Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and the Indian
spin quartet — Erapalli Prasanna and
Srinivas Venkataraghavan (both off
spinners), Bhagwat Chandra sekhar (a leg
spinner), and Bishen Singh Bedi(a left-arm
spinner). Traditionally much stronger at
home than abroad, the Indian team has
improved its overseas form since the start
of the 21st century.

22. It won the Cricket World Cup in 1983 under Kapil
Dev, was runner-up in 2003 under Sourav
Ganguly, and won the World Cup a second time in
2011 under Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It thus became
only the third team after West Indies and
Australia to have won the World Cup more than
once.[4] It is also the first cricket team to win the
World Cup on home soil. India has also been the
runner-up in 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy and the
joint champion along with Sri Lanka in 2002 ICC
Champions Trophy, led by Ganguly in both the
instances. India also won the inaugural World
Twenty20 under the captaincy of Dhoni in 2007.

23. The Indian cricket team is currently ranked
fifth by the ICC in Tests,[5] third in ODIs and
T20Is.[6] Currently, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is
the captain in all forms of the game while
Duncan Fletcher is the coach. Under the
leadership of Dhoni, the Indian team has set a
national record for most back-to-back ODI
wins (nine straight wins)[7] and has emerged
as one of the most formidable teams in
international cricket.[8] The current team
contains many of the world's leading players,
including Sachin Tendulkar and Virender
Sehwag, who hold numerous cricketing world
records.[9]