The History of Cricket

The article surveys historical writing about cricket, mainly in England, although some attention is paid to other cricket‐playing countries. The emphasis is on the social history of the game, focussing especially on its relationship to local and national identities; the ways in which it has reflected (and affected) class and race relations; and its financial and organizational structures. What had originally been a peasant game was partially taken over by members of the English gentry and aristocracy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and by corporate interests in the twentieth. In the process it developed a rich and varied literature that directly engages with the social and cultural history of Britain and the other countries in which the game took root.