History of cricket

There is a consensus of expert opinion that cricket may have been invented during Saxon or Norman times by children living in the Weald, an area of dense woodlands and clearings in south-east England. The first reference to cricket being played as an adult sport was in 1611, and in the same year, a dictionary defined cricket as a boys' game. There is also the thought that cricket may have derived from bowls, by the intervention of a batsman trying to stop the ball from reaching its target by hitting it away.