THIS CRICKET GAME.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5481, 30 September 1929, Page 4

THIS CRICKET GAME.

PLAYED 1000 YEARS AGO.

COWLED MONKS ITS DEVOTEES.

How did the game of cricket originate ? It has been linked up with a ball game played in Iceland, of all places, nearly 1000 years ago, but it seems beyond all question that it was played in England in 1344, for the famous Bodleian Library at Oxford has a picture showing monks hunting the leather. The first known written laws are dated 1744, and there are reports of games between English counties as far back as 1730.

Cricket students, and their number is legion, are a little puzzled as to the origin of cricket. An attempt has been made to link it up with a ball game played in Iceland in the year 1000. It is claimed that the word itself emanates from the old French criquet—“a stick used as a mark in the game of bowls.” Others again associate it with "crice” or “cryce,” a staff. Andrew Lang was the most prominent of a school of thought which held the view that cricket was an old word for a stool, derived from the German “Kriechen,” to creep. But apart from the etymology of the word, there is in existence a 13th century manuscript with grotesque delineations of two male figures playing a game with bat and ball. In the Bodleian Library also there is a pictorial representation of a game played in 1344, and showing cowled monks as fielders. This is the first reference to “fielders” in the game. Later, in the 15th century, we come across a game of “Hondyn and Hondout” (hand in and hand out), and attempts have been made to link it up with the present game of cricket. In his excellent work, "A History of Cricket,” Mr H. S. Altham writes as follows : “However questionable may be the existence of cricket in the time pf the Plantagenets, there is no doubt as to it being played under the Tudors. In the fortieth year of Elizabeth, 1598, a certain. John Derrick, gentleman and Queen’s coroner for the county, bears written testimony (still preserved, I believe, at Guildford) as to a parcel of land in the parish of Holy Trinity in that town, which, originally waste, had been appropriated and enclosed by one, John Parvish, to serve as a timber yard. This land, says Derrick, he had known for fifty years past, and, when a scholar of the Free School of Guildford (founded 1509) he and several of his fellows did run and play there at cricket and other plaies. In 1654, it is recorded that the church wardens and overseers of Eltham (Kent) fined seven of their parishioners the then considerable sum of 2s each for playing cricket on the Lord’s day. Again, during Cromwell’s regime, E. Phillips, a nephew of Milton, makes one of the ladies in his mysteries of love and eloquence torture herself with the doubt whether one day her beloved may not say, “Would my eyes had been beat out of my head with a cricket ball the day before I saw thee !” The earliest code of laws relating to cricket are dated 1744, and represent the game as played at headquarters, viz., the Artillery ground, London. The primitive bat, it is thought, was just a shaped branch of a tree, but it has gradually evolved into the present, not inexpensive production. It is considered that the ball has shown not nearly so much change from the type originally used, as leather casings for balls were made by the Romans, and the tennis balls of the early sixteenth century were kid covered, and hemp or hair stuffed. Originally there was only one umpire. The dimensions of bat and ball have varied from time to time, and the number of stumps has been increased. For nearly 100 years after the discovery of cricket a spin of a coin determined not only the right to bat first, but also the right to select the pitch. In the early days there must have been some rare fun at times, as may be gathered from the fact that if a batsman played the ball back to the bowler the batsman at the bowler’s end was permitted to jostle the bowler with his hip to prevent the catch being taken ! The law was as follows : “When the ball is hit up, either of the strikers may hinder the catch in his running ground, or if it is hit directly across the wicket the other player may place his body anywhere within the swing of his bat so as to hinder the bowler from catching it, but he must not strike at it or touch it with his hands.” . An important development occurred early in the eighteenth century, when round-arm bowling was gradually introduced into the game.

There are reports of games between representatives of English counties as far back as 1730, and many of the matches were played for stakes, with very heavy wagering. It is not surprising to learn, therefore, that the “squaring” of players* and even of teams, was not then unknown. The Sussex Club, which was formed in 1839, was really the first county club as we know them to-day. But a much more important event was the establishment in 1787 of Lord’s ground by Thomas Lord, an attendant and ground bowler formerly connected with the White Conduit Club, then the most important in London. The ground was in the neighbourhood of Marylebone, and with the formation of the new playing area the Marylebone Club, now generally recognised throughout the Empire as the headquarters of cricket, was also established.