By the 17th century cricket had spread across England, though it was far from being universally accepted among the cream of the society. The sport remained generally confined to the British Isles. Even if soldiers and sailors and other adventurers might have played cricket outside the islands, they certainly did not bother to document it —till Henry Teonge did so on May 6, 1676. Abhishek Mukherjee recollects the incident and the events leading up to it.