We’re so used to saying that cricket stumps were first seen in fields in England but it appears now that this may in fact not be the case, with historians suggesting that it could well have first been played in a village called Liettres in the north of France way back in 1748.
The French national archives contain a letter written to the king that makes mention of a game using balls and a wooden post, referred to as “criquet”, the Independent reports.
President of Lille Cricket Club Philippe Dethoor observed that the game that we know and love today is an English creation, yet added: “But the mention of cricket at Liettres in the 15th century is perfectly plausible. It is believed that the game originated in Kent or possibly Flanders. Maybe by the late 15th century some form of the game had crossed the Channel from England, or maybe it was the other way around.”
There is evidence of cricket being played in Surrey in around 1550 and it was mentioned in Florio’s Italian-English dictionary in 1598. In 1624, Jasper Vinall was the first person thought to be killed while playing cricket at Horsted Green in Sussex (apparently hit by a bat when he was trying to catch the ball) and in 1676, there was the first reference to the game being played abroad in Aleppo in Syria by British ex-pats.
In 1709, there was the first-ever recorded inter-county match that took place between Kent and Surrey, while in 1710 the first reference to the game was made at Cambridge University. Find out even more fun cricket facts here.
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