CRICKET. The game of cricket may be called the national summer pastime of the English race. The etymology of the word itself is the subject of much dispute. The Century Dictionary connects with O. Fr. criquet, “a stick used as a mark in the game of bowls,” and denies the connexion with A.S. crice or cryce, a staff. A claim has also been made for cricket, meaning a stool, from the stool at which the ball was bowled, while in the wardrobe account of King Edward I. for the year 1300 (p. 126) is found an allusion to a game called creag. Skeat, in his Etymological Dictionary, states that the word is probably derived from A.S. crice (repudiated by the first authority quoted), the meaning of which is a staff, and suggests that the “et” is a diminutive suffix; the word is of the same origin as “crutch.” Finally the New English Dictionary traces the O. Fr. criquet, defined by Littré as “jeu d’addresse,” to M. Flem. Krick, Krüke, baston à s’appuyer, quinette, potence.
History.—In a MS. of the middle of the 13th century, in the King’s library, 14 Bv, entitled Chronique d’Angleterre, depuis Ethelberd jusqu’à Hen. III., there is found a grotesque delineation of two male figures playing a game with a bat and ball. This is undoubtedly the first known drawing of what was destined to develop into the scientific cricket of modern times. The left-hand figure is that of the batsman, who holds his weapon upright in the right hand with the handle downwards. The right-hand figure shows the catcher, whose duty is at once apparent by the extension of his hands. In another portion of the same MS., however, there is a male figure pointing a bat towards a female figure in the attitude of catching, but the ball is absent. In a Bodleian Library MS., No. 264, dated the 18th of April 1344, and entitled Romance of the Good King Alexander, fielders for the first time appear in addition to the batsman and bowler. All the players are monks (not female figures, as Strutt misinterprets their dress in his Sports and Pastimes), and on the extreme left of the picture, the bowler, with his cowl up, poises the ball in the right hand with the arm nearly horizontal. The batsman comes next with his cowl down, a little way only to the right, standing sideways to the bowler with a long roughly-hewn and slightly-curved bat, held upright, handle downwards in the left hand. On the extreme right come four figures—with cowls alternately down and up, and all having their hands raised in an attitude to catch the ball. It has been argued that the bat was always held in the left hand at this date, since on the opposite page of the same MS. a solitary monk is figured with his cowl down, and also holding a somewhat elongated oval-shaped implement in his left hand; but it is unsafe to assume that the accuracy of the artist can be trusted.
The close roll of 39 Edw. III. (1365), Men. 23, disparages certain games on account of their interfering with the practice of archery, where the game of cricket is probably included among the pastimes denounced as “ludos inhonestos, et minus utiles aut valentes.” In this instance cricket was clearly considered fit for the lower orders only, though it is evident from the entry in King Edward’s wardrobe account, already mentioned, that in 1300 the game of creag was patronized by the nobility. Judging from the drawings, it can only be conjectured that the game consisted of bowling, batting and fielding, though it is known that there was an in-side and an out-side, for sometime during the 15th century the game was called “Hondyn or Hondoute,” or “Hand in and Hand out.” Under this title it was interdicted by 17 Edw. IV. c. 3 (1477-1478), as one of those illegal games which still continued to be so detrimental to the practice of archery. By this statute, any one allowing the game to be played on his premises was liable to three years’ imprisonment and £20 fine, any player to two years’ imprisonment and £10 fine, and the implements to be burnt. The inference that hand in and hand out was analogous to cricket is made from a passage in the Hon. Daines Barrington’s Observations on the more Ancient Statutes from Magna Charta to 21 James I. cap. 27. Writing in 1766, he comments thus on the above statute, viz.: “This is, perhaps, the most severe law ever made against gaming, and some of these forbidden sports seem to have been manly exercises, particularly the handyn and handoute, which I should suppose to be a kind of cricket, as the term hands is still retained in that game.”
The word “cricket” occurs about the year 1550. In Russell’s History of Guildford it appears there was a piece of waste land in the parish of Holy Trinity in that city, which was enclosed by one John Parish, an innholder, some five years before Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. In 35 Elizabeth (1593) evidence was taken before a jury and a verdict returned, ordering the garden to be laid waste again and disinclosed. Amongst other witnesses John Derrick, gent., and one of H.M.’s coroners for Surrey, aetat. fifty-nine, deposed he had known the ground for fifty years or more, and “when he was a scholler in the free school of Guildford, he and several of his fellowes did runne and play there at crickett and other plaies.” In the original edition of Stow’s Survey of London (1598) the word does not occur, though he says, “The ball is used by noblemen and gentlemen in tennis courts, and by people of the meaner sort in the open fields and streets.”
Some noteworthy references to the game may be cited. In Giovanni Florio’s dictionary A Worlde of Wordes most Copious and Exact, published in Italy in 1595 and in London three years later, squillare is defined as “to make a noise as a cricket, to play cricket-a-wicket and be merry.” Sir William Dugdale states that in his youth Oliver Cromwell, who was born in 1599, threw “himself into a dissolute and disorderly course,” became “famous for football, cricket, cudgelling and wrestling,” and acquired “the name of royster.” In Randle Cotgrave’s Dictionary of French and English, dated 1611, Crosse is translated “crosier or bishop’s staffe wherewith boys play at cricket,” and Crosser “to play at cricket.”
Among the earliest traces of cricket at public schools is an allusion to be found in the Life of Bishop Ken by William Lisle Bowles (1830). Concerning the subject of this biography, who was admitted to Winchester on the 13th of January 1650/1, it is said “on the fifth or sixth day, our junior ... is found for the first time attempting to wield a cricket bat.” In 1688 a “ram and bat” is charged in an Etonian’s school bill, but it is possible this may only refer to a cudgel used for ram-baiting. In The Life of Thomas Wilson, Minister of Maidstone, published anonymously in 1672, Wilson having been born in 1601 and dying in or about 1653, occurs the following passage (p. 40): “Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, in as much as I have seen morrice-dancing, cudgel-playing, stool-ball, crickets, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on the Lord’s Day.” Cricket is found enumerated as one of the games of Gargantua in The Works of Rabelais, translated in 1653 by Sir Thomas Urchard (Urquhart), vol. i. ch. xxii. p. 97. In a poem entitled The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence or the Arts of Wooing and Complimenting (1658), by Edward Phillips, John Milton’s nephew, the mistress of a country bumpkin when she goes to a fair with him says “Would my eyes had been beaten out of my head with a cricket ball.” The St Alban’s Cricket Club was founded in 1661, one of its earliest presidents being James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury (1666-1694).
In 1662 John Davies of Kidwelly issued his translation of Adam Olearius’ work entitled The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors from the Duke of Holstein to the Grand Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia. Begun in the year 1633 and finished in 1639. On page 297 is a description of the exercises indulged in by the Persian grandees in 1637, and the statement is made that “They play there also at a certain game, which the Persians call Kuitskaukan, which is a kind of Mall, or Cricket.” In the Clerkenwell parish book of 1668 the proprietor of the Rum Inn, Smithfield, is found rated for a cricket field.
The chaplain of H.M.S., “Assistance,” Rev. Henry Teonge, states in his diary that during a visit to Antioch on the 6th of May 1676, several of the ship’s company, accompanied by the consul, rode out of the city early and amongst other pastimes indulged in “krickett.” During the first half of the 18th century the popularity of the game increased and is frequently mentioned by writers of the time, such as Swift, who alludes sneeringly to “footmen at cricket,” D’Urfey, Pope, Soame Jenyns, Strype in his edition of Stow’s Survey of London, and Arbuthnot in John Bull, iv. 4, “when he happened to meet with a football or a match at cricket.”
In 1748 it was decided that cricket was not an illegal game under the statute 9 Anne, cap. 19, the court of king’s bench holding “that it was a very manly game, not bad in itself, but only in the ill use made of it by betting more than ten pounds on it; but that was bad and against the law.” Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, died in 1751 from internal injuries caused by a blow from a cricket ball whilst playing at Cliefden House. Games at this period were being played for large stakes, ground proprietors and tavern-keepers farming and advertising matches, the results of which were not always above suspicion. The old Artillery Ground at Finsbury was one of the earliest sites of this type of fixture. Here it was that the London Club—formed about 1700—played its matches. The president was the prince of Wales, and many noblemen were among its supporters. It flourished for more than half a century. One of the very earliest full-scores kept in the modern fashion is that of the match between Kent and All England, played on the Artillery Ground on the 18th of June 1744.