Charities Cricketers

Cricket is one of many games in the "club ball" sphere that involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement. The earliest known definite reference to cricket is to it being played in South East England in the mid-16th century. It is generally believed that cricket originated as a children's game in the south-eastern counties of England, sometime during the medieval period. The earliest definite reference to cricket being played comes from evidence given at a court case in Guildford in January 1597 (Old Style, equating to January 1598 in the modern calendar).

Cricket remained a low-key local pursuit for much of the 17th century. By the end of the century, cricket had developed into a major sport that was spreading throughout England and was already being taken abroad by English mariners and colonisers. The game underwent major development in the 18th century to become England's national sport. The Hambledon Club was founded in the 1760s and was the game's greatest club and focal point for the next twenty years until the formation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the opening of Lord's Old Ground in 1787. The MCC quickly became the sport's premier club and the custodian of the Laws of Cricket.

The British Empire was instrumental in spreading the game overseas, and by the middle of the 19th century, it had become well established in Australia, the Caribbean, British India (which also includes present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh), New Zealand, North America and South Africa. In 1844, the first international match took place between what were essentially club teams, from the United States and Canada, in New York; Canada won. The first Australian team to travel overseas consisted of Aboriginal stockmen who toured England in 1868. In 1876–77, an England team took part in what was retrospectively recognised as the first-ever Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground against Australia. The rivalry between England and Australia gave birth to The Ashes in 1882, which remains Test cricket's most famous contest.

The inter-war years were dominated by Australia's Don Bradman, statistically the greatest Test batter of all time. Cricket entered a new era in 1963 when English counties introduced the limited overs variant. The first Limited Overs International was played in 1971, and the governing International Cricket Council (ICC), seeing its potential, staged the first limited overs Cricket World Cup in 1975. The 21st century brought with it the Bangladesh Team, who made their Test debut in 2000. A new format made up of 20-over innings, called T20 cricket, quickly became highly popular. In 2017, Afghanistan and Ireland became the 11th and 12th Test nations.

In cricket, the rules of the game are codified in The Laws of Cricket, which has a global remit. The field is usually circular or oval in shape, and the edge of the playing area is marked by a boundary. In the approximate centre of the field is a rectangular pitch on which a wooden target called a wicket is sited at each end; the wickets are placed 22 yards (20 m) apart. Each wicket is made of three wooden stumps topped by two bails. The main objective of each team is to score more runs than their opponents. The wicket-keeper and the batters wear protective gear because of the hardness of the ball, which can be delivered at speeds of more than 145 kilometres per hour (90 mph).

The International Cricket Council (ICC), which has its headquarters in Dubai, is the global governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa. The ICC is responsible for the organisation and governance of cricket's major international tournaments, notably the men's and women's versions of the Cricket World Cup. Cricket is played at both the international and domestic level. The ICC also organises competitions that are for several countries at once, including the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, ICC T20 World Cup and ICC Champions Trophy.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.