Dubai : Canada and the United States played the first international cricket match way back on September 24 &25 , 1844. This match was however not being recognised by the games' world governing body. The first recognised cricket match was played in 1877 - a test match between England and Australia. From here on the two teams competed regularly for the Ashes series. Later on 1889, South Africa was granted test status.
Cricket was introduced in the Olympics for the only time in 1900 Paris Olympics when Great Britain beat hosts France to clinch the Gold Medal.
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In 1912, the first multinational cricket tournament was staged which was participated by the then test playing nations - England , Australia and South Africa. It was staged in England and the tournament was a test tournament. It was not a success
The number of nations playing Test cricket increased gradually over time, with the addition of West Indies in 1928, New Zealand in 1930, India in 1932, and Pakistan in 1952. However, international cricket continued to be played as bilateral Test matches over three, four or five days.
In the early 1960s, County teams in England began playing a shortened version of cricket which only lasted for one day. In 1962 a four-team knock-out tournament known as the Midlands Knock-Out Cup was organised and continuing with the inaugural Gillette cup in 1963, the shorter version of the game grew in popularity in England. A national Sunday League was formed in 1969 The first One-Day International match was played on the fifth day of a rain-aborted Test match between England and Australia at Melbourne in 1971 to fill the time available and as compensation for the frustrated crowd. It was a forty over per side game with eight balls per over.
1971 saw a new cricket revolution with Kerry Packer inaugurating the rival World Series Challenge (WSC) competition. It introduced many of the now commonplace features of One Day Internationals including coloured uniforms, matches played at night under floodlights with a white ball and dark sight screens, and, for television broadcasts, multiple camera angles, effects microphones to capture sounds from the players on the pitch, and on-screen graphics. The first of the matches with coloured uniforms was the WSC Australians in wattle gold versus WSC West Indians in coral pink, played at VFL Park in Melbourne on 17 January 1971. The success and popularity of the domestic one-day competitions in England and other parts of the world, as well as the early One-Day Internationals, prompted the ICC to consider organising a Cricket World Cup that finally stroke off in 1975.
