在“读BBC记单词”版块，温州新东方关怡老师将挑选一些有趣的BBC新闻小片段，带着各位雅思托福考生一起强化雅思托福高频词汇。

大家只需每天花10分钟的阅读时间，来一起积累最地道的英文表达方式！

废话不多说，让我们开始吧！

  Cricket(板球) began as far as we can tell in the 16th century as a farm game played by labourers and farmers around the home counties(county县，郡) in Kent and Hampshire. But by the 18th century, cricket had really become a major spectator activity(有看点的活动，spectator观众) with the great landowners, the patrons(赞助者) coming in to support it, challenging each other, employing their own farm labourers to play for them andstaking(押注) huge amounts of money on the result of the game. This came about because England had been transformed intoanimmensely(极其) rich society in the 17th and 18th century through trades, through the investment(投资) in land. There was a great, leisured(从容的) aristocracy(贵族，统治阶级) who were looking for entertainment, and sport-and-betting was one of the main forms of entertainment they found.