Excerpt: Cricketing Lives by Richard H Thomas
Who first decided to hurl a ball at three wooden sticks?
…there are traces of the game – or at least its name – in Finnish and Viking history. It seems that it began after the Roman Empire, before the Norman invasion and ‘almost certainly somewhere in Northern Europe’.
But the notion that cricket might be an Anglo-Saxon creation is contentious. The French… have compelling evidence that someone called Estiavannet arrived at the village of Liettres in 1478 and found people playing boules near a post called a ‘criquet’. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted; there was an inflammatory comment, and someone was killed. In 2015 the village arranged some Twenty20 games involving teams from Whitstable and Ghent to celebrate its claims as cricket’s birthplace. Since they were played on a cow pasture, the bounce would have been variable, but at least nobody died.
However, there seems to be more written about the game’s origins in England than anywhere else. The Normans, it is claimed, played something like it as far back as 1066, and Joseph of Exeter mentions it in a poem at the end of the twelfth century. Chaucer describes the game in his Canterbury Tales, and references to ‘creag’ involving King Edward i in the thirteenth century may be the earliest trace of royal involvement with leather and willow.
…Oliver Cromwell liked the game initially, but eventually tried banning ‘krickett’ altogether… But Cromwell, like uncovered wickets, did not last, and the game might actually owe him something; his revolution forced the aristocracy to their country estates, where they found their tenants playing a ‘rough-and-ready but lively and intriguing game’. …
By the early eighteenth century, cricket had spread from the Home Counties outwards to the (mainly English) countryside. The first set of laws were developed in 1744 and cynics might conclude that the game thereafter signed itself over to administrators.
By this time Frederick, Prince of Wales, had become interested in it, and with royal patronage, cricket thrived. He awarded a cup to a winning side in 1733 in cricket’s first recorded example of a trophy being conferred rather than cash. This happy progress was halted in its tracks when the prince died in 1751. The mode of death is significant, albeit contested. It was probably an embolism, but some claim the prince’s death was the result of a blow from a cricket ball. If so, it was a unique case of “play stopping reign”.
Seemingly, 1751 was a notable year, as the gambling associated with cricket became more serious. The Earl of Sandwich organized a match between Old Etonians and All England that promised £1,500 for the winning team. The total bets amounted to £20,000, but in reality ‘All England’ meant ‘eleven chaps who had not gone to Eton’. In 1751 surely nobody imagined that in the future, cricket would more than once be brought to its knees by betting.
…Inevitably, as cricketers recognized that skill could distinguish genius from journeyman and could be translated into hard cash, the game began to attract what it has never been without since – star players. One of the first of these big names… was Edward ‘Lumpy’ Stevens… Capable of bowling quickly yet accurately – all underarm in those days – he was famed for flighting the ball rather than rolling it along the ground, which is what everyone else did… he had been minding his own business working as the Earl of Tankerville’s gardener until His Lordship discovered that this portly horticulturist could control a cricket ball as if it were on a string. The relationship dynamic between master and servant changed when Lumpy’s cricket ability was discovered and even though the earl was famously bad-tempered, in cricketing matters, Lumpy was in charge… Betting ruled, patrons engaged professionals to win and make them wealthy, and Lumpy certainly did the business for the earl. He played into his fifties and retired to tend His Lordship’s roses at Walton-on-Thames.
…Hot on the heels of the game’s first superstar bowler came its first superstar batsman. Pictures of William Beldham – later known as ‘Silver Billy’ because of his long and resplendent locks – hang prominently in the pavilions at both Lord’s and The Oval… John Nyren described Silver Billy on the attack with bat in hand as “one of the most beautiful sights”. When he batted, “men’s hearts throbbed, and their cheeks turned pale and red” – Michelangelo, indeed, “should have painted him”.
… Lumpy and Silver Billy were cricket’s first batting and bowling luminaries, but the eminent all-rounder of that period was Alfred Mynn… He was cricket’s ‘Falstaffian Frontiersman’, who believed that preparation for a match involved ‘beef and beer’. Little wonder that estimates of his weight vary between 18 and 24 stones (115–50 kg), and that he was diabetic…
…cricket almost claimed his life. In 1836 he played for the South versus the North and during what passed as the warm-up, the ball struck Mynn on the ankle. Despite serious injury, he managed to bat and bowl. By day three, though… Mynn’s leg was badly swollen. While anyone else would simply have given up, the Lion of Kent limped out to bat and, “in constant agony, hit the bowling all over the field”. He made 125 not out, which was his only first-class century and the first ever to be made with a runner – another batsman doing everything but hitting the ball… Mynn’s leg was in a shocking condition. He needed medical attention, but because of his immobility, his general bulk and the unsuitability of the stagecoach summoned to take him, he was lashed to the roof for the hundred-mile trip to London.
After being examined at the Angel Tavern in St Martin’s Lane, it was decided to amputate the leg at the hip. Only Mynn’s request for time to pray before the operation meant that the attending surgeons reconsidered, and he was left intact. Within two years Mynn was fully restored, but the whole episode did no end of good to those who manufactured batting pads.
…Was the cradle of cricket in Hampshire or Surrey? It settled in a pub, the Lord Protector tried to destroy it and a future king tried to promote it, but it might have killed him. Lumpy and Silver Billy played it, the Lion of Kent excelled at it and the bookmakers controlled it. From now on, expect the unexpected.
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Who first decided to hurl a ball at three wooden sticks?
…there are traces of the game – or at least its name – in Finnish and Viking history. It seems that it began after the Roman Empire, before the Norman invasion and ‘almost certainly somewhere in Northern Europe’.
But the notion that cricket might be an Anglo-Saxon creation is contentious. The French… have compelling evidence that someone called Estiavannet arrived at the village of Liettres in 1478 and found people playing boules near a post called a ‘criquet’. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted; there was an inflammatory comment, and someone was killed. In 2015 the village arranged some Twenty20 games involving teams from Whitstable and Ghent to celebrate its claims as cricket’s birthplace. Since they were played on a cow pasture, the bounce would have been variable, but at least nobody died.
However, there seems to be more written about the game’s origins in England than anywhere else. The Normans, it is claimed, played something like it as far back as 1066, and Joseph of Exeter mentions it in a poem at the end of the twelfth century. Chaucer describes the game in his Canterbury Tales, and references to ‘creag’ involving King Edward i in the thirteenth century may be the earliest trace of royal involvement with leather and willow.
…Oliver Cromwell liked the game initially, but eventually tried banning ‘krickett’ altogether… But Cromwell, like uncovered wickets, did not last, and the game might actually owe him something; his revolution forced the aristocracy to their country estates, where they found their tenants playing a ‘rough-and-ready but lively and intriguing game’. …
By the early eighteenth century, cricket had spread from the Home Counties outwards to the (mainly English) countryside. The first set of laws were developed in 1744 and cynics might conclude that the game thereafter signed itself over to administrators.
By this time Frederick, Prince of Wales, had become interested in it, and with royal patronage, cricket thrived. He awarded a cup to a winning side in 1733 in cricket’s first recorded example of a trophy being conferred rather than cash. This happy progress was halted in its tracks when the prince died in 1751. The mode of death is significant, albeit contested. It was probably an embolism, but some claim the prince’s death was the result of a blow from a cricket ball. If so, it was a unique case of “play stopping reign”.
Seemingly, 1751 was a notable year, as the gambling associated with cricket became more serious. The Earl of Sandwich organized a match between Old Etonians and All England that promised £1,500 for the winning team. The total bets amounted to £20,000, but in reality ‘All England’ meant ‘eleven chaps who had not gone to Eton’. In 1751 surely nobody imagined that in the future, cricket would more than once be brought to its knees by betting.
…Inevitably, as cricketers recognized that skill could distinguish genius from journeyman and could be translated into hard cash, the game began to attract what it has never been without since – star players. One of the first of these big names… was Edward ‘Lumpy’ Stevens… Capable of bowling quickly yet accurately – all underarm in those days – he was famed for flighting the ball rather than rolling it along the ground, which is what everyone else did… he had been minding his own business working as the Earl of Tankerville’s gardener until His Lordship discovered that this portly horticulturist could control a cricket ball as if it were on a string. The relationship dynamic between master and servant changed when Lumpy’s cricket ability was discovered and even though the earl was famously bad-tempered, in cricketing matters, Lumpy was in charge… Betting ruled, patrons engaged professionals to win and make them wealthy, and Lumpy certainly did the business for the earl. He played into his fifties and retired to tend His Lordship’s roses at Walton-on-Thames.
…Hot on the heels of the game’s first superstar bowler came its first superstar batsman. Pictures of William Beldham – later known as ‘Silver Billy’ because of his long and resplendent locks – hang prominently in the pavilions at both Lord’s and The Oval… John Nyren described Silver Billy on the attack with bat in hand as “one of the most beautiful sights”. When he batted, “men’s hearts throbbed, and their cheeks turned pale and red” – Michelangelo, indeed, “should have painted him”.
… Lumpy and Silver Billy were cricket’s first batting and bowling luminaries, but the eminent all-rounder of that period was Alfred Mynn… He was cricket’s ‘Falstaffian Frontiersman’, who believed that preparation for a match involved ‘beef and beer’. Little wonder that estimates of his weight vary between 18 and 24 stones (115–50 kg), and that he was diabetic…
…cricket almost claimed his life. In 1836 he played for the South versus the North and during what passed as the warm-up, the ball struck Mynn on the ankle. Despite serious injury, he managed to bat and bowl. By day three, though… Mynn’s leg was badly swollen. While anyone else would simply have given up, the Lion of Kent limped out to bat and, “in constant agony, hit the bowling all over the field”. He made 125 not out, which was his only first-class century and the first ever to be made with a runner – another batsman doing everything but hitting the ball… Mynn’s leg was in a shocking condition. He needed medical attention, but because of his immobility, his general bulk and the unsuitability of the stagecoach summoned to take him, he was lashed to the roof for the hundred-mile trip to London.
After being examined at the Angel Tavern in St Martin’s Lane, it was decided to amputate the leg at the hip. Only Mynn’s request for time to pray before the operation meant that the attending surgeons reconsidered, and he was left intact. Within two years Mynn was fully restored, but the whole episode did no end of good to those who manufactured batting pads.
…Was the cradle of cricket in Hampshire or Surrey? It settled in a pub, the Lord Protector tried to destroy it and a future king tried to promote it, but it might have killed him. Lumpy and Silver Billy played it, the Lion of Kent excelled at it and the bookmakers controlled it. From now on, expect the unexpected.
This winter season, get Flat 20% Off on Annual Subscription Plans
Enjoy Unlimited Digital Access with HT Premium
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