Cricket's first superstar was a doctor. Its delivery network was an empire. And the first time England played a Test match — they lost it.
For decades cricket fought itself over how you were allowed to bowl. Bowlers were no-balled mid-match; one walked away from the game; another was no-balled six times in a row and his teammates marched off with him. In 1864 the lawmakers surrendered and legalised overarm. Modern cricket's engine was an act of rebellion.
W.G. Grace: a Gloucestershire giant training to be a doctor, so far ahead of everyone that Victorians said only the Queen and the Prime Minister were more recognisable in public.
Soldiers, sailors, administrators and railway men laid out pitches in India, Australia, the Caribbean and South Africa. Cricket didn't spread because it was simple. It spread because it arrived with the timetable.
An England eleven met Australia in what history calls the first Test match. Australia won by 45 runs. The very first time colony played mother country on level terms, the colony won.
Five years later, Australia did something worse: they won a Test in England. And a newspaper responded with an obituary.