ABSTRACT
There are two fundamental questions which must be asked at the outset of this geographical analysis of county cricket. Firstly how, and why, did certain county teams emerge? Why, for instance, did Surrey and Middlesex emerge as the main county teams in the London area, rather than Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire or Berkshire? Secondly, we need to know exactly how, and where cricket developed - was it a random process, or was it in a clear and distinguishable form? To answer both these questions, we need an historical framework on which to analyse the game's evolution.
