Cricket arrived in Hong Kong with the British during 1841, and enjoyed access to a myriad of grounds including many armed forces and police facility fields during the city's 156 years as a colony.

The Hong Kong Cricket Club was established in 1851 which became the de facto national team in 'Interport' series against Shanghai, against teams from what became Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

In 1903 the Hong Kong cricket league was founded and competing clubs came to include the likes of Kowloon CC, Craigengower CC and Little Sai Wan CC, as the sport maintained a high level of popularity among the broader expat community, which only intensified as more and more families started migrating from South Asia in the late 20th century.

Beyond the global notoriety of the HK Sixes in the '90s and '00s, the men's national team saw significant improvement during this period culminating in 2013-14 when they qualified for HK's first (T20) World Cup and also attained ODI status. The team competed in another T20WC in 2016; the same year Michael Clarke and Sandeep Lamichhane came to the city to play in the inaugural HK T20 Blitz.

Much effort and funding has been directed toward growing the game within the majority local community with some success. The all-Chinese HK Dragon men's team competes in the East Asia Cup against China, Korea and Japan, and around half of the women's squad is HK Chinese with much of this success due to the pioneering work in the early 2000s by the late Anita Miles.