Croquet games, there are regular world championships and international matches between croquet-playing countries. The sport has particularly strong followings in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia; every four years, these countries play the MacRobertson Shield tournament. Many other countries also play. The current world rankings show England in top place for association croquet, followed by Australia and New Zealand sharing second place, with the United States in fourth position; the same four countries appear in the top six of the golf croquet league table, below Egypt in top position, and with South Africa at number five. Croquet is popularly believed
Croquet (depending on whether sticks were used), was regularly played in France and southern Britain between villages or parishes; it was attested in Cornwall as early as 1283. In the book "Queen of Games: The History of Croquet", Nicky Smith presents two theories of the origin of the modern game of croquet, which took England by storm in the 1860s and then spread overseas. The first explanation is that the ancestral game was introduced to Britain from France during the 1630–1685 reign of Charles II of England, and was played under the name of ' (among other spellings, today usually "pall-mall"),