History of cricket

Early cricket was at some time or another described as "a club striking a ball (like) the ancient games of club-ball, stool-ball, trap-ball, stob-ball".^[3] Cricket can definitely be traced back to Tudor times in early 16th-century England. Written evidence exists of a game known as creagbeing played by Prince Edward, the son of Edward I (Longshanks), at Newenden, Kent in 1301^[4] and there has been speculation, but no evidence, that this was a form of cricket.

A number of other words have been suggested as sources for the term "cricket". In the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598,^[5] it is called creckett. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch^[6] krick(-e), meaning a stick (crook); or the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff.^[7] In Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick.^[8] In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick".^[9] Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church and which resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket.^[10]According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey,met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase").^[11] Dr Gillmeister believes that not only the name but the sport itself is of Flemish origin.^[1