Marylebone Cricket Club, based at Lord's, developed the modern rules of play and conduct.

Recreational matches are organised on a regional basis, with the top level being the ECB Premier Leagues.

Since 1909, the ECB has been affiliated with ICC, the international governing body for world cricket.

[7][8] International cricket in England follow a fixed pattern, the English schedule under which the nation tours other countries during the winter and plays at home during the summer.

The England cricket team has also provided some of the greatest players to the world, the biggest example of which is W. G. Grace.

On a domestic level, there are eighteen professional county clubs,[22] seventeen of them in England and one in Wales.

These clubs are heavily dependent on subsidies from the England and Wales Cricket Board, which makes its money from television and endorsement contracts and attendances at international matches.

The English cricket season traditionally starts at the beginning of April and runs through to the second half of September although in recent years counties have played pre season friendly matches at the very end of March.

[27] This included eight teams each representing a region of England and Wales, and competing in the 50-over Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy from 2020 and the Twenty20 Charlotte Edwards Cup from 2021.

[32][33] The success of the Durham centre led to it being adopted as a national model by the ECB in October 2000, with the establishment of six UCCE sides (two – Durham and Loughborough – based around a single university; the others bringing together players from multiple institutions) playing from 2001 in a two-day match competition with a final at Lord's.

[37] A further re-arrangement in 2012 granted first-class status to all six MCCUs, but only for two of the three matches against county sides each season.

[47] The university teams that have played first-class cricket, the dates when they held that status, the universities they represented and the number of first class matches played are:[48] Teams representing a single university: a Date of earliest first class match listed on the Cricket Archive; formal first class status from 1895. b Includes matches prior to 1895 regarded as first class by the Cricket Archive; see First-class cricket § Retrospective classification of matches played before the definitions.

[49][50] The MCC Universities team (formed from the six MCCUs) played various matches from 2007 to 2017, including entering the Second XI Championship from 2009 to 2017.

Five of these grounds have hosted both men's and women's Tests in their history: The Oval (South London), Old Trafford (Manchester), Trent Bridge (Nottingham), Headingley (Leeds) and Edgbaston (Birmingham).

In 2005 the ECB concluded a commercial arrangement with BSkyB which gave Sky the exclusive television rights for live Test cricket in England for four years (the 2006 to 2009 seasons).