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Cricket: the French didn’t start it |
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Tuesday, 08 July 2008 |
Dear Editor,
I’m sorry to disappoint your readers but the claim that cricket was first played in the Pas-de-
Calais in 1478 is a charming myth – but a myth all the same. The word ‘criquet’ does appear
in a 15th-century document but there is no agreement among scholars on what it means, and
there is no other evidence to support the claim. The cricket historian Rowland Bowen (who
first suggested that ‘criquet’ referred to cricket) had his theory demolished in the leading
archivists’ journal, and accepted that he was wrong before he died.
One of the things that misled Bowen was that a form of cricket was played at Saint-
Omer in the Pas-de-Calais during the 18th century and possibly earlier. But this was at the
Jesuit boarding school run there for English boys from 1593 (Catholic schools were banned
in Protestant England). It is likely that boys from south-east England, where we know that
cricket was played in the 17th century onwards, brought the game to the school. So they
were probably the first French cricketers.
Wynford Hicks, Secretary, Saint-Aulaye Cricket
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