First-class cricket

A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adjudged to be worthy of the status by virtue of the standard of the competing teams.

The etymology of "first-class cricket" is unknown, but the term was used loosely before it acquired official status in 1895, following a meeting of leading English clubs.

The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) has published a list of early matches which are believed to have been of a high standard.

In the inaugural issue of Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game on 10 May 1882, the term is used twice on page 2 in reference to the recently completed tour of Australia and New Zealand by Alfred Shaw's XI.

The report says it is "taking" the first-class matches to be one against Sydney (sic), two each against Victoria, the Combined team and the Australian Eleven, and another against South Australia.

In the early 1860s, several more county clubs were founded, and questions began to be raised in the sporting press about which should be categorised as first-class, but there was considerable disagreement in the answers.

As a result, those clubs became first-class from 1895 along with MCC, Cambridge University, Oxford University, senior cricket touring teams (i.e., Australia and South Africa at that time) and other teams designated as such by MCC (e.g., North v South, Gentlemen v Players and occasional "elevens" which consisted of recognised first-class players).

Hence, official judgment of status is the responsibility of the governing body in each country that is a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

[12] In 2010, the ICC published its Classification of Official Cricket which includes the criteria with which a match must comply to achieve a desired categorisation.

In November 2021, the ICC retrospectively applied first-class status to women's cricket, aligning it with the men's game.

Writing in 1951, Roy Webber argued that the majority of matches prior to 1864 (i.e., the year in which overarm bowling was legalised) "cannot be regarded as first-class" and their records are used "for their historical associations".

[22] On the internet, the CricketArchive (CA) and ESPN Cricinfo (CI) databases both say the earliest first-class match was Hampshire v England at Broadhalfpenny Down on 24 and 25 June 1772.

[23][24] At that time, cricket matches were played with a two-stump wicket and exclusively underarm bowling, although other features of the modern game had been introduced.

Contemporary importance was often measured by the amount of money at stake and the fact that a match was deemed notable enough to be reported in the press.