page_title: History of cricket
section_title: First definite reference
hierarchical_section_title: History of cricket / Early cricket / First definite reference
caption_attribution_description: English: Royal Grammar School, Guildford (S Knights, my pic, Oct 2007)
context_page_description: The sport of cricket has a known history beginning in the late 16th century. Having originated in south-east England, it became the country's national sport in the 18th century and has developed globally in the 19th and 20th centuries. International matches have been played since 1844 and Test cricket began, retrospectively recognised, in 1877. Cricket is the world's second most popular spectator sport after association football. Governance is by the International Cricket Council which has over one hundred countries and territories in membership although only twelve currently play Test cricket.
context_section_description: A 1597 (Old Style – 1598 New Style) court case in England concerning an ownership dispute over a plot of common land in Guildford, Surrey mentions the game of creckett. A 59-year-old coroner, John Derrick, testified that he and his school friends had played creckett on the site fifty years earlier when they attended the Free School. Derrick's account proves beyond reasonable doubt that the game was being played in Surrey circa 1550, and is the earliest universally accepted reference to the game.
  The first reference to cricket being played as an adult sport was in 1611, when two men in Sussex were prosecuted for playing cricket on Sunday instead of going to church. In the same year, a dictionary defined cricket as a boys' game and this suggests that adult participation was a recent development.
caption: John Derrick was a pupil at the Royal Grammar School, then the Free School, in Guildford when he and his friends played creckett circa 1550
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