List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket. List A cricket includes One Day International matches and various domestic competitions in which the number of overs in an innings per team ranges from forty to sixty. Together with first-class and Twenty20 cricket, List A is one of the three major forms of cricket recognised by the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Most Test cricketing nations have some form of domestic List A competition. The scheduled number of overs in List A cricket ranges from forty to sixty overs per side.
The categorization of cricket matches as "List A" was not officially endorsed by the International Cricket Council until 2006, when the ICC announced that it and its member associations would be determining this classification in a manner similar to that done for first-class matches. The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians created this category for the purpose of providing an equivalent to first-class cricket, to allow the generation of career records and statistics for comparable one-day matches. Only the more important one-day competitions in each country, plus matches against a touring Test team, are included. The list was the work of Philip Bailey and the name is derived simply from there being a list A and a list B.
The first List A cricket match was played between Lancashire and Leicestershire in May 1963, in the preliminary round of the Gillette Cup. Each side batted for 65 overs, and bowlers were restricted to 15 overs each.