The first two decades. Here's a look at the milestones in the site's history so far

1992

January 2

A group of expat cricket enthusiasts based in US universities sets up rec.sport.cricket, a moderated newsgroup, to enable online access of scores, and results. The group, led by, among others, Professor KS Rao, sees a surge in membership before and during the World Cup in Australia.

1993

January

The BBC's commentary of England's tours of India and Sri Lanka is "narrowcast" from England to the USA. Using a software that, once connected to a radio/walkman, allows for real-time transmission of audio over the Internet, volunteers transcribe score updates of the England v India Test matches onto the IRC channel #cricket.

March 15

Simon King - user name "coolpom" - launches Cricinfo as a bot on the IRC channel #cricket, where visitors to the channel can access a score update on request.

Within a couple of months of the launch, Cricinfo subsequently moves onto Gopher, a precursor of the early web browsers. The Cricinfo database is available on the World Wide Web, having moved from King's computer to Prof Rao's at the University of North Dakota and then to a server at the Oregon Graduate Institute provided by Etienne Barnard, a research professor. A gopher client allows visitors to access scorecards and reports accumulated by contributors.

1994

Cricinfo offers the ICC a free hosting service. Cricket boards around the world, realising the potential of the volunteer-based service that Cricinfo operates on, seek tie-ups for hosting their respective websites on Cricinfo.

September-October

Cricinfo provides live match coverage of Australia's tour to Pakistan, including the thrilling first Test where Pakistan sneaks to a one-wicket win over Australia.

1995

Cricinfo's archive of Test-match scorecards is complete, thanks to Travis Basevi and Vishal Misra, two cricket fans and programmers based in Sydney and Massachusetts respectively. Every Test ever is now recorded on Cricinfo.

Cricinfo becomes a "website" - cricinfo.org - with a homepage, a logo, and a basic interface. By the end of the year it will have recorded 3.5 million page views, reaching 80 different countries across 16 time zones.

The first mobile editions are launched, keeping Cricinfo a step or two ahead of the times.

1996

February-March

Cricinfo's live ball-by-ball coverage of the 1996 World Cup is the first such coverage on the internet of a major cricket tournament staged simultaneously in more than one country. The tournament's coverage expands the site's readership.

June

Cricinfo goes commercial, becomes cricinfo.com (and a company, Cricinfo Ltd). The site hosts its first online interview, with Mohammad Azharuddin, and provides live coverage of matches in Sharjah.

December

Cricinfo agrees to host Zimbabwe Cricket's website in an effort to boost cricket in the country.

1997

January

Cricinfo inks its first major revenue deal, a £15,000 deal with Cable and Wireless. Later in the year, Titan Watches becomes the first Indian brand to advertise on the site, followed by Kingfisher and Intel.

Cricinfo sends Simon King and Basevi to the ICC Mini World Cup in Malaysia to handle ball-by-ball coverage. They organise scorers, computers and phone lines almost overnight to ensure that the tournament is covered properly.

King gets a call from Mick Jagger asking for live coverage of an ODI tournament featuring England in Sharjah. Cricinfo ties up with Jagged Internetworks, buys TV rights and broadcasts that tournament and a few others. The coverage is live audio commentary accompanied by a slideshow of images from the matches (one frame every five seconds).

1999

Cricinfo sets up its India office and gets an investor in Pangolin (early Sportal).

While Cricinfo is not "official" for the World Cup in England the site, for the first time, features extensive advertising sales.

2000

February

Cricinfo gives Zimbabwe Cricket £80,000, doubling the country's annual cricket development budget.

June

Satyam Infoway, India's first software firm on NASDAQ, acquires a 25% stake in Cricinfo for $37 million - placing the valuation of Cricinfo at $150 million.

November

Cricinfo sponsors the Women's World Cup; matches are streamed live, creating tremendous interest in the event.

Statsguru is launched. One of the most popular features on Cricinfo even today, the dedicated database query tool gives readers free access to all sorts of statistics related to players and teams.

Cricinfo launches its audio commentary service, which features the likes of Tony Cozier, Colin Croft and Neil Foster. Later in the year it also streams live audio coverage of the matches played in the ICC Knock-out tournament in Kenya.

Cricinfo exceeds 100 million page views in a single month for the first time.

2001

Cricinfo sponsors the County Championships in the UK and, later that year, the women's Ashes series - called the Cricinfo Series.

2003

Cricinfo is bought by the Wisden Group during the 2003 World Cup, with Sambit Bal taking over as editor. The website is redesigned.

2005

Dougie gives way to Feedback, a new scoring platform whose richer data-capturing mechanism enables graphic representations of the on-field action and more comprehensive ball-by-ball data.

Blogs are launched on the site, beginning with The Surfer, an aggregator linking to the "best of the web".

2006

Cricinfo Mobile gets off the ground. The service includes Cricinfo Genie, which delivers live ball-by-ball simulations of games, and 3D, live three-dimensional animation.

The launch of a full-fledged audio service, featuring experts including Ian Chappell, Tony Greig, Sanjay Manjrekar and Kumar Sangakkara to provide pre- and post-match previews and comments via streaming, downloads and podcasts.

2007

June

ESPN buys Cricinfo from Wisden for an undisclosed sum. The website is renamed ESPNcricinfo.

2008

The IPL is launched, and ESPNcricinfo responds with Page 2 - a humour and satire section - and Chatterbox, an interactive match-time chat between readers and the site's writers.

2009

June

The website undergoes a comprehensive redesign, with larger pictures, a clearly defined main engagement area, and new content areas.

2011

The World Cup, held on the subcontinent, is won by India and breaks several traffic records. ESPNcricinfo launches a special microsite for the tournament, and a special travel section. The site records 6.5 million unique users for the India-Pakistan semi-final. ESPNcricinfo's chronicle of the tournament, a book titled Sealed With A Six, is published to critical and commercial acclaim.

2012

ESPNcricinfo diversifies across media, with a book on Rahul Dravid, who has retired recently, and apps for the iPad and mobile.

2013

New ventures in social and interactive media with the launch of the fan microsite The Stands; a social-media scorecard, Match Companion; and The Cordon, an enhanced blogs section. The third ESPNcricinfo book, Talking Cricket, a collection of interviews with current and former players, is published.

The iPhone app is relaunched - taking the user much closer to the web experience.

The first two decades

ESPNcricinfo has been around for as long as the web. Here's a look at the milestones in the site's history so far