History of cricket to 1725

Unlike other games with batsmen, bowlers and fielders, such as stoolball and rounders, cricket can only be played on relatively short grass, especially as the ball was delivered along the ground until the 1760s.

A big attraction for them was the opportunity that the game offered for gambling and this escalated in the years following the Restoration when cricket in London and the south-eastern counties of England evolved into a popular social activity.

Meanwhile, English colonists had introduced cricket to North America and the West Indies, and the sailors and traders of the East India Company had taken it to the Indian subcontinent.

By 1725, significant patrons—such as Edwin Stead; Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond; and Sir William Gage—were forming teams of county strength in Kent and Sussex.

[4] In what may be an early reference to the sport, a 1533 poem attributed to John Skelton describes Flemish weavers as "kings of crekettes", a word of apparent Middle Dutch origin.

[7] Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church, the shape of which resembled the two stump wicket used in early cricket.

[8] According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of the University of Bonn, cricket derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase").

The authorities include writers Harry Altham, John Arlott, Derek Birley, Arthur Haygarth, David Underdown, Roy Webber and Peter Wynne-Thomas.

Their consensus view is that the only thing that can definitely be said about the origin of cricket is that its earliest record is in a late 16th-century court case in Surrey which proves it was played by children in southeast England in the middle of that century.

However, it is generally believed that cricket essentially belongs to the same family of bat-and-ball games as stoolball, rounders and baseball but whether it evolved from any of these, or vice versa, cannot be determined.

[6] The court in Guildford heard on Monday, 17 January 1597[1] (Julian date, equating to 27 January 1598 in the Gregorian calendar) from a 59-year-old coroner, John Derrick, who gave witness that when he was a scholar fifty years earlier at the Free School of Guildford, "hee and diverse of his fellows did runne and play [on the common land] at creckett and other plaies", confirming that the sport was played there by schoolboys c.1550.

The Puritans were by then in control of Parliament which closed the theatres and issued sanctions against other recreational activities although, again, there was no mention of cricket except when individual players were accused of "breaking the Sabbath".

There were three reasons for the prosecution: one was that it contravened a local bye-law; another reflected concern about church windows which may or may not have been broken; the third was that a little childe had like to have her braines beaten out with a cricket batt!

In a 1636 court case concerning a tithe dispute, a witness called Henry Mabbinck testified that he played cricket "in the Parke" at West Horsley in Surrey.

[24] The beginnings of cricket's social division between amateurs and professionals, from which the annual Gentlemen v Players contest ultimately evolved, can be traced to the reign of Charles I.

The earliest reference to gambling on a cricket match is in the records of a 1646 court case concerning non-payment of a wager that was made on a game at Coxheath in Kent on Friday, 29 May that year.

Curiously, considering the huge sums of money staked later in the century, this wager was for twelve candles, but the participants included members of the local gentry.

In John Phillips' Duellum Musicum, a 1673 pamphlet concerning music tuition, there is a criticism of his rival Thomas Salmon, who had boasted of being a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford: "He shews but a slender sign of his University-Education: Where he seems to have spent his time rather in the more laudable Exercises of Trap and Cricket, than in any sound Reading".

[55] Even so, there is a shortage of references from this period due to the Licensing of the Press Act 1662 which imposed stringent controls on the newspaper industry and sports, including cricket, were not reported.

[58] The Restoration was effectively completed during the spring of 1660 and, in the general euphoria which both accompanied and followed these historic events, gambling on cricket and other sports was freely pursued.

[55] Under their patronage, the first teams representing several parishes and even whole counties were formed in the 1660s and the period saw the first "great matches" as cricket evolved into a major sport.

[59] He claimed that a kind of "feudal patronage" was established as the nobility took control of the sport, their interest fuelled by the opportunities for gambling that it provided, and this set the pattern for cricket's development through the next century.

Gage then stated that he is "in great affliction from being shamefully beaten yesterday (Thursday, 15 July 1725) the first match I played ys (sic) year".

The match, played before "a vast Concourse of People", was hosted by Thomas Howard, 8th Duke of Norfolk who gave a ball at Arundel Castle in the evening.

It is known that Lord Chief Justice Pratt presided over the case and ordered them, as in the London v Rochester match in 1718, to play it out so that all wagers could be fulfilled.

[102] Other good players known to have been active in the 1720s were Edwin Stead of Kent; Edmund Chapman and Stephen Dingate of Surrey; Tim Coleman of London; and Thomas Waymark of Sussex.

A diarist called Henry Tonge, who was part of a British mission at Aleppo in the Ottoman Empire, recorded that "at least forty of the English" left the city for recreational purposes and, having found a nice place to pitch a tent for dinner, they "had several pastimes and sports" including "krickett".

One of the players wrote: "When my boat was lying for a fortnight in one of the channels, though the country was inhabited by the Culeys, we every day diverted ourselves with playing Cricket and to other Exercises, which they would come and be spectators of".

[118] While Britain's seafaring and trading concerns ensured the spread of cricket overseas, at home it relied heavily on ease of transport and communications, most of these being waterborne as long journeys tended to be undertaken using coastal or river vessels.

The match, played before "a vast Concourse of People", was hosted by Thomas Howard, 8th Duke of Norfolk who gave a ball at Arundel Castle in the evening.