Cricket.

Cricket is one of many games that involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement; others are baseball, golf, hockey, tennis, squash, and table tennis. In cricket's case, a key difference is the existence of a solid target structure, the wicket that the batsman must defend. The cricket historian Harry Altham identified three "groups" of "club ball" games: the "hockey group", in which the ball is driven to and fro between two targets (the goals); the "golf group", in which the ball is driven towards an undefended target (the hole); and the "cricket group", in which "the ball is aimed at a mark (the wicket) and driven away from it".

It is believed that cricket originated as a children's game in the South-Eastern counties of England during the medieval period. Although there are claims for prior dates, the earliest definite reference to cricket being played comes from evidence given at a court case in Guildford on Monday, 17 January 1597. The case concerned ownership of a certain plot of land and the court heard the testimony of 59-year-old John Derrick who gave witness that:

"Being a scholler in the ffree schoole of Guldeford hee and diverse of his fellows did runne and play there at creckett and other plaies".

Given Derrick's age, it was about half a century earlier when he was at school and so it is certain that cricket was being played c.1550 by boys in Surrey.

(Wikipedia, edited & shortened)