The last two decades before the First World War have been dubbed by some historians as the Golden Age of Cricket, conjuring up images of a bygone era when the game was at its zenith.
And it coincided with the global spread of the game as the sport that had originated in England and was exported across the world in the wake of Britain’s Imperialist ambitions.
As every British schoolboy in 1914 knew, a quarter of the earth’s surface was coloured pink, denoting a British colony.
Thanks to British traders, sailors and colonists, the game soon reached distant corners of the globe, with games being played in North America in 1709. A few years later, it had reached the West Indies and India and then in 1788, Australia. The 19th century saw it reach South Africa and New Zealand as well.
In 1844, the first international match was played in New York, featuring teams from the United States and Canada. Twenty-four years later, a team composed of solely Australian Aborigines toured England. And in 1877, the first ever Test match was played between Australia and England in Melbourne. Australia won by 43 runs.
Five years later, when Australia toured England and won a Test match at the Oval, a mock obituary for English cricket in the Sporting Times spawned the concept of the Ashes. Two Melbourne ladies then took it upon themselves to burn a ball and present it in an urn to the English cricket captain.
By 1889, South Africa had become the third Test-playing nation. And in 1900 in Paris, cricket made its one and only appearance at the Summer Games, England beating France to win the gold medal.
Meanwhile, in 1909, the Imperial Cricket Conference – which later became the International Cricket Council – was established to administer the game, with England, Australia, and South Africa its founder members.
No reference to cricket in this period would be complete without mention of WG Grace, arguably still the most famous man ever to have played the game. He played First-class cricket for 44 seasons between 1865 and 1908 captaining a variety of sides including Gloucestershire, England and the MCC, and was a larger-than-life character, both on and off the pitch.
A right-handed batsman and roundarm bowler, Grace has been credited with a number of technical innovations, including his use of tactics, and mastery of all strokes. He was the first to play comfortably both off the front- and the back-foot. A controversial man, he known for his gamesmanship and money-making ability from a sport where it was honourable to be strictly amateur.