History of Indian cricket - Before 1930s
The game of cricket was introduced in India in the middle of the 18th century. On 3rd March 1845 the ‘Sporting Intelligence’ magazine carried a reasonably lengthy match report between ‘Sepoy’ cricketers and the European ones. The article clearly proved that Indian cricket was underway in a city called Sylhet, in modern day Bangladesh. 
An impressed reporter proudly stated “the most enthusiastic European Cricketers could not have played with more energy and cheerfulness than the Sepoys did”. 

However, chroniclers of cricket unanimously suggest that the formation of ‘Parsi Oriental Cricket Club’ in Bombay in the year 1848 led to the start of organized cricket by the Indians. 

Parsi cricket 

The first Indians to take to the game were the Parsis of Bombay, an educated, well-to-do and progressive community. In 1848, the Parsi boys established the ‘Oriental Cricket Club’. 

The emerging Parsi middle class supported cricket as a means of strengthening ties with the overlords, while intellectuals welcomed it as a renewal of physical energy for the race. Around thirty Parsi clubs were formed in the within two decades of the formation of the first club. They were named for British viceroys and statesmen and for Roman gods.

Hindu cricket 

The Hindu’s took up the game of cricket with the primary reason that they did not want to fall behind the Parsis in any manner. The first Hindu club ‘Bombay Union’ was formed in 1866. Hindus started playing cricket due to social and business rivalry with the Parsis. Hindu cricketers sorted themselves on the lines of caste and region of origin.



One of the primary Hindu cricketer was Ramchandra Vishnu Navlekar. 
Some of the main clubs were Gowd Saraswat Cricket Club, Kshatriya Cricket Club, Gujrati Union Cricket Club, Maratha Cricket Club, Teluu Youn Cricketrs etc.


“There is no more agreeable sight to me,” remarked the Mayor of Bombay in 1886, “than of the whole Maidan overspread by a lot of enthusiastic Parsi and Hindu cricketers, keenly and eagerly engaged in this manly game.”

Gymkhanas

The all-white Bombay Gymkhana, which even refused admission to Ranji, was established in 1875. The Europeans invited the Parsis to paly with them for the first time in 1877. This more or less became a regular feature though it was a decade before the Parsis’ eventually managed to win. Beginning from 1886, the Hindus also began playing an annual match with the Europeans. 

With the efforts of Luxmani and Tyebjee families, also famous for their social work such as establishing schools and good work at the law courts, the Muslims had also set up their own cricket club in 1883. This was known as the Muslim Cricket Club.

Cricket in India got a huge impetus by the formation of Parsi, Hindu and Muslim Gymkhanas in the 1890s. The British alloted one plot each to the three major religious communities in the city, for their exclusive use ending their conflict with the colonizers. 

Ranjit Singhji 

A notable mention in this era is the vital contribution of the Black Prince, Prince Ranjit Singhji who had moved to England to study at Cambridge University and was given a cricket “blue” in his final year by the college. 

He then went on to play county cricket for Sussex. He made his Test debut for England in 1896. This made him the first Indian to play Test cricket. 
Ranjit Singhji was Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1897. He scored a century in the second innings on his Test debut, making his only the second batsman for England to achieve this feat. Duing the year 1899 he amassed 2,780 runs during a season which was the highest aggregate ever made! 

India’s most prestigious first-class cricket tournament – Ranji Trophy was named after him in order to honour this great cricketer.

The Bombay Quadrangular 

It started as a contest between the Parsis and the Europeans and evolved thereafter. The Hindus joined in 1886. These matches came to be called the Presidency matches due to their ever-rising popularity. In 1907 a triangular tournament was started which involved the Parsis, Europeans and the Hindus. 

It was in 1912 that the Muslims joined the league of the famous Bombay tournaments turning it into a Quadrangular. Neutral umpires were introduced for the first time in 1917. Uptil now, umpires were mainly appointed from the Bombay Gymkhana. However, all this changed and umpires began to be appointed from the non-competing teams. 

In the 1920’s, the quadrangular tournament gained immense popularity. Players were being selected from all over the sub-continent region. This gave a huge boost to cricket in India and led to the start of several other tournaments all over the country.

In the year 1937, a new team called the Rests was also added to the already four teams turning it into a Pentangular tournament. However, in 1946 due to communal disturbances this Pentangular tournament was done away with, and a zonal competition came into existence.

The Nayudus from Nagpur 

The Nayudu family spent thousands on the promotion of cricket. They formed a club in Nagpur that coached many underprivelaged boys and took care of their education provided they fulfilled the only condition, that is, to play cricket. 
Such was the family’s fascination with the sport that C K Nayudu’s birth was celebrated by his granddad by organising a cricket match.

The family’s contribution proved fruitful as C.K Nayudu, the family’s illustrious son, went on to become one of the finest batsmen that India has ever produced.

One of Nayudu’s most memorable innings was his 153 in Bombay in 1926. Coming in an hour and thirteen minutes against six English top line bowlers spoke volumes of the progress made by Indian cricket. CK Nayudu was Wisden’s Cricketer of the Year in 1933 and was also nicknamed as the ‘Hindu Bradman’.

Formation of BCCI

A.E.R Gilligan’s MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) toured India in 1926 and took on Bombay in a match that proved to be a turning point in the history of Indian cricket. As C K Naidu smashed 153, with elevan sixes and thirteen fours, for the Hindus, India began dreaming big. It eventually led to the formation of BCCI in 1928. Records prove that the first meeting was held on 4 December 1928 and was funded by the Maharaja of Patiala.
The first President of the Board was RE Grant Govan and the founding Secretary was AS De Mello. De Mello later went on to become Board President and was also involved in the creation of the Cricket Club of India. He also helped in establishing Brabourne Stadium which was India’s first permanent cricket venue in 1937. 

AMID much fanfare, the 150th edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack was published last week. The annual, a mix of statistics and features that not even two world wars could keep from the presses, is ubiquitously referred to as the bible of cricket. So revered is Wisden, in its distinctive yellow jacket, that in 2007 Bonhams, an auctioneer, sold a complete set of what was then 144 volumes for £84,000 ($165,000). The Guardian estimates the price of a full set today at £135,000.

Perhaps the most famous copy belonged to E.W. Swanton, a renowned cricket writer. Taken prisoner by the Japanese in Singapore during the second world war, Swanton was forced to work on the Burma-Siam railway. Conditions were unimaginably harsh: thousands of prisoners died in its construction; Swanton contracted polio but survived. His tatty copy of the 1939 Wisden, declared permissible reading by his Japanese guards, was one of the prisoners’ rare distractions. So popular was it that loans had to be rationed to an hour.

The 150th edition contains a list of the ten most significant cricketing events to have happened since the first one was first published in 1864. This includes the inception in 1882 of the Ashes, the private battle between England and Australia for a tiny urn in which lies the symbolic ashes of English cricket. It also takes in the 29th instalment of that series—the Bodyline Tests of 1932-33—in which England’s fast bowling, aimed at the Australians' heads and bodies, almost ended diplomatic relations. The D’Oliveira affair, which led to the sporting boycott of South Africa, is naturally included. So is another South African scandal,Hansie Cronje's match-fixing. The list ends with the establishment of the Indian Premier League in 2008.

However, although it gives a good impression of an elder statesman, at 150 years oldWisden is a mere arriviste. The first recorded mention of a cricket match dates from around 1550, just after the death of Henry VIII. Had the almanac been around since then, what other events might have demanded inclusion? Game Theory humbly offers five suggestions.

Patronage, 1697Long before Cronje took the bookmakers’ lucre, cricket had attracted gamblers. At the turn of the 18th century, most of England’s wealth was in the hands of a few landowners. These had plenty of leisure time. To amuse themselves, they became patrons to teams formed to play for high stakes. In one of the first references to this, from 1697, the sides at a match in Sussex split 100 guineas. By 1723 the game had its most famous patron when Charles Lennox succeeded his father to become the second duke of Richmond.

As Sir John Major, a former British prime minister and cricket historian, noted in “More Than a Game”, “money was to be the root of all progress”. With so much cash riding on the outcome of games, so came the need for more tightly defined rules. Several matches had already ended in riots—and lawsuits—after perceived underhandedness by patrons. The first recorded attempt at settling on some basic rules was made for a match in 1727. Formal laws, however, were not drawn up until 1744, making cricket the first game to be codified. These laid out, among other things, the dimensions of the pitch, the height of the wicket, the weight of the ball, the length of overs and the various ways of being out.

The middle stump, 1775Bowlers are a grumpy breed at the best of times. One can only guess at the expletives uttered by Lumpy Stevens, the most formidable bowler of the late 18th century, as he produced three perfect (underarm) deliveries, which, one imagines, pitched on off stump and jagged back to strike halfway up middle—only for it then to dawn on Lumpy that the middle stump had yet to be adopted. Instead the three balls sailed harmlessly through without dislodging the bail. It was this spell that encouraged an early amendment to the laws: the introduction of a third stump. Modern bowlers who complain that cricket has become a batsman’s game should perhaps be grateful they weren’t toiling away in the time of George II.

American independence, 1776Just a year after the introduction of a third stump, England was hit by a shock with almost equal cultural significance: the loss of its American colony. Cricket and baseball had been played side by side in England, and both sports had been eagerly exported to the New World. Well into the 19th century, cricket was a popular American game: indeed, the first international cricket match was between the United States and Canada in 1840. In 1859, an England XI set sail for New Jersey to play a match against the Americans before a crowd of 24,000 (England won). But ever since the revolution, America had begun to break free from Britain’s gravitational pull. And so baseball, losing popularity in England, had already started its slow ascent to pre-eminence. By the end of the 19th century there was no debate as to which sport had won American hearts. Is it fanciful to speculate that, without the revolution, a British America would have been cricket’s powerhouse today?

The founding of the Marylebone Cricket Club, 1787As with much of cricket’s past, the history of the MCC is uncertain. It was probably the latest incarnation of a club that had played under several names, including the White Conduit Club. But most date the MCC's birth from 1787, when it asked Thomas Lord, a businessman and cricketer, to find it a ground. From the outset it “took precedence over all other clubs” writes Sir John. “It had prestige, rank and the endorsement of cricket’s leading sponsors.” A year later it revised the laws of cricket and it has been their guardian ever since. Although the International Cricket Council now runs the show from Dubai, the MCC still holds the copyright to cricket. So important was it that for most of the 20th century English Test teams abroad played under the name of the Marylebone Cricket Club. The MCC moved to its current north London home in 1811, a mile from the original site. Lord's is almost universally referred to as the “home of cricket”.

Overarm bowling, 1864For much of the game's early history, cricket balls were delivered underarm. At first it was rolled along the ground; only later did bowlers start to use bounce. In 1780 one Tom Walker started to bowl with a roundarm action, his arm horizontal to the ground. This was thought to be against the spirit of the game and he was called for “throwing”. As Amol Rajan describes in his book “Twirlymen”, he was being chastised “not for straightening his arm but for raising it too high. In other words they thought he was a cheat, not a chucker.” By the middle of the 19th century, however, roundarm bowling was the norm. Canny bowlers tried to gain more advantage by moving their arm ever closer to the vertical. Although at first they were often no-balled, by 1864 the  overarm style was legalised. So began the modern era of cricket.

In the same year a bowler of some repute called John Wisden gathered some statistics, about both cricket and unrelated topics, such as the English civil war, and published them in an almanac. 

The origins of cricket lie somewhere in the Dark Ages - probably after the Roman Empire, almost certainly before the Normans invaded England, and almost certainly somewhere in Northern Europe. All research concedes that the game derived from a very old, widespread and uncomplicated pastime by which one player served up an object, be it a small piece of wood or a ball, and another hit it with a suitably fashioned club.

How and when this club-ball game developed into one where the hitter defended a target against the thrower is simply not known. Nor is there any evidence as to when points were awarded dependent upon how far the hitter was able to despatch the missile; nor when helpers joined the two-player contest, thus beginning the evolution into a team game; nor when the defining concept of placing wickets at either end of the pitch was adopted.

Etymological scholarship has variously placed the game in the Celtic, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch and Norman-French traditions; sociological historians have variously attributed its mediaeval development to high-born country landowners, emigré Flemish cloth-workers, shepherds on the close-cropped downland of south-east England and the close-knit communities of iron- and glass-workers deep in the Kentish Weald. Most of these theories have a solid academic basis, but none is backed with enough evidence to establish a watertight case. The research goes on.

What is agreed is that by Tudor times cricket had evolved far enough from club-ball to be recognisable as the game played today; that it was well established in many parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey; that within a few years it had become a feature of leisure time at a significant number of schools; and - a sure sign of the wide acceptance of any game - that it had become popular enough among young men to earn the disapproval of local magistrates.

Dates in cricket history

1550 (approx) Evidence of cricket being played in Guildford, Surrey.
1598 Cricket mentioned in Florio's Italian-English dictionary.
1610 Reference to "cricketing" between Weald and Upland near Chevening, Kent. 1611 Randle Cotgrave's French-English dictionary translates the French word "crosse" as a cricket staff.
Two youths fined for playing cricket at Sidlesham, Sussex.

1624 Jasper Vinall becomes first man known to be killed playing cricket: hit by a bat while trying to catch the ball - at Horsted Green, Sussex.
1676 First reference to cricket being played abroad, by British residents in Aleppo, Syria.
1694 Two shillings and sixpence paid for a "wagger" (wager) about a cricket match at Lewes.
1697 First reference to "a great match" with 11 players a side for fifty guineas, in Sussex.
1700 Cricket match announced on Clapham Common.

1709 First recorded inter-county match: Kent v Surrey.
1710 First reference to cricket at Cambridge University.
1727 Articles of Agreement written governing the conduct of matches between the teams of the Duke of Richmond and Mr Brodrick of Peperharow, Surrey.
1729 Date of earliest surviving bat, belonging to John Chitty, now in the pavilion at The Oval.
1730 First recorded match at the Artillery Ground, off City Road, central London, still the cricketing home of the Honourable Artillery Company.

1744 Kent beat All England by one wicket at the Artillery Ground.
First known version of the Laws of Cricket, issued by the London Club, formalising the pitch as 22 yards long.
1767 (approx) Foundation of the Hambledon Club in Hampshire, the leading club in England for the next 30 years.
1769 First recorded century, by John Minshull for Duke of Dorset's XI v Wrotham.
1771 Width of bat limited to 4 1/4 inches, where it has remained ever since.
1774 LBW law devised.
1776 Earliest known scorecards, at the Vine Club, Sevenoaks, Kent.
1780 The first six-seamed cricket ball, manufactured by Dukes of Penshurst, Kent.
1787 First match at Thomas Lord's first ground, Dorset Square, Marylebone - White Conduit Club v Middlesex.
Formation of Marylebone Cricket Club by members of the White Conduit Club.
1788 First revision of the Laws of Cricket by MCC.
1794 First recorded inter-schools match: Charterhouse v Westminster.
1795 First recorded case of a dismissal "leg before wicket".
1806 First Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's.
1807 First mention of "straight-armed" (i.e. round-arm) bowling: by John Willes of Kent.
1809 Thomas Lord's second ground opened at North Bank, St John's Wood.
1811 First recorded women's county match: Surrey v Hampshire at Ball's Pond, London.
1814 Lord's third ground opened on its present site, also in St John's Wood.
1827 First Oxford v Cambridge match, at Lord's. A draw.
1828 MCC authorise the bowler to raise his hand level with the elbow.
1833 John Nyren publishes his classic Young Cricketer's Tutor and The Cricketers of My Time.
1836 First North v South match, for many years regarded as the principal fixture of the season.
1836 (approx) Batting pads invented.
1841 General Lord Hill, commander-in-chief of the British Army, orders that a cricket ground be made an adjunct of every military barracks.
1844 First official international match: Canada v United States.
1845 First match played at The Oval.
1846 The All-England XI, organised by William Clarke, begins playing matches, often against odds, throughout the country.
1849 First Yorkshire v Lancashire match.
1850 Wicket-keeping gloves first used.
1850 John Wisden bowls all ten batsmen in an innings for North v South.
1853 First mention of a champion county: Nottinghamshire.
1858 First recorded instance of a hat being awarded to a bowler taking three wickets with consecutive balls.
1859 First touring team to leave England, captained by George Parr, draws enthusiastic crowds in the US and Canada.
1864 Overhand bowling authorised by MCC.
John Wisden's The Cricketer's Almanack first published.
1868 Team of Australian aborigines tour England.
1873 WG Grace becomes the first player to record 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season.
First regulations restricting county qualifications, often regarded as the official start of the County Championship.
1877 First Test match: Australia beat England by 45 runs in Melbourne.
1880 First Test in England: a five-wicket win against Australia at The Oval.
1882 Following England's first defeat by Australia in England, an "obituary notice" to English cricket in the Sporting Times leads to the tradition of The Ashes.
1889 South Africa's first Test match.
Declarations first authorised, but only on the third day, or in a one-day match.
1890 County Championship officially constituted.
Present Lord's pavilion opened.
1895 WG Grace scores 1,000 runs in May, and reaches his 100th hundred.
1899 AEJ Collins scores 628 not out in a junior house match at Clifton College, the highest individual score in any match.
Selectors choose England team for home Tests, instead of host club issuing invitations.
1900 Six-ball over becomes the norm, instead of five.
1909 Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC - now the International Cricket Council) set up, with England, Australia and South Africa the original members.
1910 Six runs given for any hit over the boundary, instead of only for a hit out of the ground.
1912 First and only triangular Test series played in England, involving England, Australia and South Africa.
1915 WG Grace dies, aged 67.
1926 Victoria score 1,107 v New South Wales at Melbourne, the record total for a first-class innings.
1928 West Indies' first Test match.
AP "Tich" Freeman of Kent and England becomes the only player to take more than 300 first-class wickets in a season: 304.
1930 New Zealand's first Test match.
Donald Bradman's first tour of England: he scores 974 runs in the five Ashes Tests, still a record for any Test series.
1931 Stumps made higher (28 inches not 27) and wider (nine inches not eight - this was optional until 1947).
1932 India's first Test match.
Hedley Verity of Yorkshire takes ten wickets for ten runs v Nottinghamshire, the best innings analysis in first-class cricket.
1932-33 The Bodyline tour of Australia in which England bowl at batsmen's bodies with a packed leg-side field to neutralise Bradman's scoring.
1934 Jack Hobbs retires, with 197 centuries and 61,237 runs, both records. First women's Test: Australia v England at Brisbane.
1935 MCC condemn and outlaw Bodyline.
1947 Denis Compton of Middlesex and England scores a record 3,816 runs in an English season.
1948 First five-day Tests in England.
Bradman concludes Test career with a second-ball duck at The Oval and a batting average of 99.94 - four runs short of 100.
1952 Pakistan's first Test match.
1953 England regain the Ashes after a 19-year gap, the longest ever.
1956 Jim Laker of England takes 19 wickets for 90 v Australia at Manchester, the best match analysis in first-class cricket.
1957 Declarations authorised at any time.
1960 First tied Test, Australia v West Indies at Brisbane.
1963 Distinction between amateur and professional cricketers abolished in English cricket.
The first major one-day tournament begins in England: the Gillette Cup.
1969 Limited-over Sunday league inaugurated for first-class counties.
1970 Proposed South African tour of England cancelled: South Africa excluded from international cricket because of their government's apartheid policies.
1971 First one-day international: Australia v England at Melbourne.
1975 First World Cup: West Indies beat Australia in final at Lord's.
1976 First women's match at Lord's, England v Australia.
1977 Centenary Test at Melbourne, with identical result to the first match: Australia beat England by 45 runs.
Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, signs 51 of the world's leading players in defiance of the cricketing authorities.
1978 Graham Yallop of Australia wears a protective helmet to bat in a Test match, the first player to do so.
1979 Packer and official cricket agree peace deal.
1980 Eight-ball over abolished in Australia, making the six-ball over universal.
1981 England beat Australia in Leeds Test, after following on with bookmakers offering odds of 500 to 1 against them winning.
1982 Sri Lanka's first Test match.
1991 South Africa return, with a one-day international in India.
1992 Zimbabwe's first Test match.
Durham become the first county since Glamorgan in 1921 to attain firstclass status.
1993 The ICC ceases to be administered by MCC, becoming an independent organisation with its own chief executive.
1994 Brian Lara of Warwickshire becomes the only player to pass 500 in a firstclass innings: 501 not out v Durham.
2000 South Africa's captain Hansie Cronje banned from cricket for life after admitting receiving bribes from bookmakers in match-fixing scandal.
Bangladesh's first Test match.
County Championship split into two divisions, with promotion and relegation.
The Laws of Cricket revised and rewritten.
2001 Sir Donald Bradman dies, aged 92.
2003 Twenty20 Cup, a 20-over-per-side evening tournament, inaugurated in England.
2004 Lara becomes the first man to score 400 in a Test innings, against England.
2005 The ICC introduces Powerplays and Supersubs in ODIs, and hosts the inaugural Superseries.
2006 Pakistan forfeit a Test at The Oval after being accused of ball tampering.

Resources relating to the history of cricket

General

• A history of 18th Century cricket literature by AR Littlewood
• The measurements of cricket - the origin of the dimensions of cricket by AR Littlewood.

National

• History of Cricket in Bangladesh
• History of Cricket in Zimbabwe

ICC Associates and affiliates

• History of Cricket In Bermuda
• History of the History of Cricket In Canada
• History of Cricket In Israel
• History of Cricket In Ireland
• History of Cricket in Kenya
• Singapore Cricket - a short history
• Cricket in America - An Historical Summary

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