Editing First-class cricket (section)

{{Short description|Cricket played at the highest domestic standard}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2019}}
{{Cricket sidebar |expanded=all}}
'''First-class cricket''', along with [[List A cricket]] and [[Twenty20 cricket]], is one of the highest-standard forms of [[cricket]]. A first-class match is 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. Matches must allow for the teams to play two [[innings]] each, although in practice a team might play only one innings or none at all.

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. At a meeting of the [[International Cricket Council|Imperial Cricket Conference]] (ICC) in 1947, it was formally defined on a global basis. A significant omission of the ICC ruling was any attempt to define first-class cricket retrospectively. That has left historians and statisticians with the problem of how to categorise earlier matches, especially those played in Great Britain before 1895. 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.

[[Test cricket]], the highest standard of cricket, is statistically a form of first-class cricket, though the term "first-class" is mainly used to refer to domestic competition. A player's first-class statistics include any performances in Test matches.