Cricket Scores, Highlights, News & Fixtures
Along with prizefighting, horse racing and blood sports, cricket was perceived to be a playing sport. Rich patrons made matches for prime stakes, forming groups by which they engaged the first professional players. By the end of the century, cricket had developed into a significant sport that was spreading throughout England and was already being taken abroad by English mariners and colonisers – the earliest reference to cricket overseas is dated 1676. A 1697 newspaper report survives of "an excellent cricket match" played in Sussex "for 50 guineas apiece" – this is the earliest known contest that's usually considered a First Class match. At the grassroots level, local club cricket is basically an amateur pastime for those concerned however still normally involves teams playing in competitions at weekends or in the evening. Schools cricket, first identified in southern England within the seventeenth century, has a similar scenario and both are extensively per...