Sussex County Cricket Club

Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Sussex. Its limited overs team is called the Sussex Sharks. The club was founded in 1839 as a successor to the various Sussex county cricket teams, including the old Brighton Cricket Club, which had been representative of the county of Sussex as a whole since the 1720s. The club has always held first-class status. Sussex have competed in the County Championship since the official start of the competition in 1890 and have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England.

The club colours are traditionally blue and white and the shirt sponsors are Galloways Accounting for the LV County Championship and Dafabet for Royal London One-Day Cup matches and Vitality Blast T20 matches. Its home ground is the County Cricket Ground, Hove. Sussex also play matches around the county at Arundel, Eastbourne and Horsham.

Sussex won its first official County Championship title in 2003 and subsequently became the dominant team of the decade, repeating the success in 2006 and 2007. In 2006 Sussex achieved ‘the double’, beating Lancashire to clinch the C&G Trophy, before winning the County Championship following an emphatic victory against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, in which Sussex defeated their hosts by an innings and 245 runs. Sussex then won the title for the third time in five years in 2007, when in a nail-biting finale on the last day of the season, Sussex defeated Worcestershire early in the day and then had to wait until past five o'clock as title rivals Lancashire narrowly failed to beat Surrey – prompting relieved celebrations at the County Cricket Ground, Hove. Sussex enjoyed further limited overs success with consecutive Pro40 wins in 2008 and 2009 as well as beating Somerset at Edgbaston to lift the 2009 Twenty20 Cup. The south coast county ended the decade having won ten trophies in ten years.

On 1 November 2015, Sussex County Cricket Club (SCCC) merged with the Sussex Cricket Board (SCB) to form a single governing body for cricket in Sussex, called Sussex Cricket Limited (SCL).

Sussex, along with Kent, is believed to be the birthplace of cricket. It is believed that cricket was invented by children living on the Weald in Anglo-Saxon or Norman times.

The first definite mention of cricket in Sussex relates to ecclesiastical court records in 1611 which state that two parishioners of Sidlesham in West Sussex failed to attend church on Easter Sunday because they were playing cricket. They were fined 12d each and made to do penance.

Cricket became established in Sussex during the 17th century and the earliest village matches took place before the English Civil War. It is believed that the earliest county teams were formed in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660. In 1697, the earliest "great match" recorded was for 50 guineas apiece between two elevens at a venue in Sussex.

Matches involving the two great Sussex patrons Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet were first recorded in 1725. The earliest known use of Sussex in a match title occurred in 1729. From 1741, Richmond patronised the famous Slindon Cricket Club, whose team was representative of the county.