Contents
Cricket in the Celtic nations
Ireland
Cricket may have been played in Ireland since the 17th century, when Oliver Cromwell’s Commissioners issued an edict banning the playing of “krickett” and ordering that all sticks and balls used in the game be “burnt by the common hangman”. This reference is disputed, however, on the grounds that it could well be a misunderstanding on the part of English officers who thought that a different game was in fact cricket, most likely “catty”, which exhibits a lot of the basic principles of cricket1. At all events, cricket then disappeared from the record of Irish history.
The earliest known reference to a match in Ireland is the August 1792 fixture in Dublin between the British garrison and an “All-Ireland” team at Phoenix Park (pictured now – still used for cricket); the garrison team winning by an innings.
Scotland
The first match for which records are available was played in September 1785 at Schaw Park, Alloa. The game was more generally introduced to Scotland by English soldiers garrisoned in the country in the years following the Jacobite rising led by Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745; and it is no coincidence that the oldest known club is Kelso (records date back to 1820), in the Borders, then a garrison town. The origins of cricket in Perth, where cricket was also played at a very early stage, similarly arose from the army presence.
The picture is the first illustration of cricket in Scotland; the figures in the distance are playing the cricket match of 1785. Lord Cathcart (centre) was then commanding officer of the Coldstream Guards and had borrowed the tent from his regiment.
This scene has been reproduced in other forms, including engraved glass.
Wales
Cricket, as a sport, has its origins in England, with its first known set of rules written in 1744. The earliest definite reference to cricket in Wales is in 1763, when it was played at Pembroke. The first recorded match was played at Llanegwad in Carmarthenshire. The first team to be mentioned is Swansea, in 1785. By around 1800, matches were also being played in the north, specifically in Holywell
Cricket outside the British Isles
General
Up to 1800, the game had spread very little beyond the British Isles; while several games of cricket have been identified in other countries, these mostly consist of travelling Englishmen organising matches among themselves. This category includes the following references:
- Henry Tongue, a Chaplain records a party from his ship played ‘krickett’ in Aleppo in 1676.
- In 1721 sailors and traders of the East Indian Company played a game of cricket.
- In 1760, a letter from Quiberon Bay refers to a game of cricket being played.
- The Calcutta Cricket Club was founded in 1792, but this was solely for English employees of the East India Company. The first Indians to form a club came from the Parsi community (descended from Persian Zoroastrians) who founded the Oriental Cricket Club in Bombay in 1848.
Cricket, however, was occasionally played in Paris by the French upper classes. Indeed, in 1787, The Times claimed that on the recommendation of the Duke of Dorset, the popularity of racing was now on the wane in France, as it was in England, and cricket taking its place, ‘making far better use of the turf’. This apparent foothold that cricket had gained prompted the Duke of Dorset to arrange a goodwill tour in 1789. He gathered together a team of professionals led by William Yalden of Chertsey, and these set off but only reached Dover but then abandoned the trip as the French Revolution was in progress. One of the less well-known consequences of the French Revolution.
North America
The one place outside Britain where cricket did gain a proper foothold was North America, especially in the state of Pennsylvania and on the East Coast generally.  The earliest possible reference to American cricket is in the 1709 diaries of William Byrd of Westover on his James River estates in Virginia, but it is suggested by some authorities that the reference may have been to another game. There is another disputed reference in 1925, but there is a certain reference in 1741. Cricket was recorded in New York in 1747, and a report of a game is advertised in the New York Gazette in 1751. By the American War of Independence (1775-83), the game was so popular that the troops at Valley Forge played matches; George Washington himself joined in at least one game of “wicket.” John Adams told Congress that if leaders of simple cricket clubs could be called “presidents,” the leader of the new nation might be called something grander. Cricket continued to develop slowly as a recreational sport after America gained independence, but was eventually usurped by baseball, a shorter game, more suitable for a country without an aristocratic elite with time on their hands and money to burn.
The earliest reports of cricket in Canada date from 1785, when games seem to have taken place in Montreal. The first reference to cricket being played on an organised basis is in 1834. Notably, the Canadian cricket team toured the United States in 1844, a tour which included the first international match (indeed, sports match) which took place between 24 and 26 September 1844 at the St George’s Cricket Club’s ground at what is now 30th Street and Broadway (then Bloomingdale Road) in Manhattan, New York.
Footnotes
- This YouTube video presents the case that Catty was the game from which cricket developed by being picked up by English troops stationed in Ireland. The timeline suggested, however, does not work; the game was already up and running in England before the time when the video suggests it was being developed in Ireland. ↩︎