Not Quite Cricket? – Cricket's relationship with British Colonialism

Article by Marcus Clark. Edited by Antony Lowe. Additional Research by Helen Midgley.

Originally the game of cricket was exported to all of Britain’s colonies for one very specific reason, as a way to reinforce a hegemonic cultural order in the face of emancipation of the relative slave populations. Cricket was effectively a tool of colonialism, much more than just a sport for sport’s sake. Cricket and everything it stood for came to be used as a mechanism to distinguish between a civilised ‘we’ and an unworthy or uncivilised ‘them’.

Cricket embodied some fundamental aspects of Victorian society such as sportsmanship, temperament, and was very much a gentleman’s game, in which phrases like ‘good stroke old bean’ were surely uttered at numerous and frequent intervals. Due to these values cricket was more than just a game to the Victorians, even the wearing of all white was a symbol of puritanism. The structure and length of the game reveal an indication of days gone by when things were simpler and people weren’t so rushed as to enjoy themselves with a leisurely game of cricket on the common or the village green. This is obviously a rather stereotyped image but cricket today still has the ‘break for tea’, something to remind us of a more romantic period. However, we shouldn’t get carried away with the ‘romantic’ values associated with cricket as placed in a colonial context they become something else entirely.

In British colonies in the 19th century cricket was used to reinforce juxtapositions between white colonial settlers and the indigenous population or those subjected to British rule. For example in the West Indies the aristocratic ‘planter’ class or wealthy landowners used cricket to remind their African subjects that were in their midst that they were a separate and distinct race. As the most gentlemanly of sports cricket embodied the Victorian way of life and all others were excluded by their inability to demonstrate an understanding of these values or indeed cricket’s image of the ideal Englishman. This was not only the case in the West Indies – it was also seen in India due to cricket’s introduction by the British East India Trading Company.

As the game evolved it became more open and was about spreading these civilised values to those considered uncivilised. In the end it was India’s super elite, its princes, that helped the sport to transcend class lines, and it was the Parsi community which was the first to take up cricket in India. The Parsis, “were the bridge community between Indian and English cultural tastes” (Appadurai, 1996:92). The Parsis originally emigrated from Central Iran over ten centuries ago and over time fully integrated into Indian society. In 1668 the East India Trading Company leased the seven islands of Bombay from Charles II and found it the ideal setting for their first port in the sub-content. The Parsis followed in the pursuit of increased working opportunities and soon began to occupy posts of trust in relation to government and the public sector. British schools provided the new Parsi youth that accompanied and emerged from this work force with the means to literacy, but also to become familiar with the quirks of the British establishment. These qualities allowed the Parsi to represent themselves as being similar to the British. While the British saw other Indians as ignorant , passive, irrational, and outwardly submissive, the Parsis were seen to have the traits that the colonial authorities tended to ascribe to themselves. Over time more communities adopted the game it became the very symbol of Indian modernity. Cricket in some sense played a role in both creating a sense of community and in time a larger sense of solidarity across classes.

But what of cricket today? There’s probably some of you thinking, ‘hey wait a minute here! This is ‘New HISTORIES Online Magazine’ I don’t care about what’s going on in the world of cricket today, I want to know more about the cricket of yesteryear, I want my history fix!’ I’m sure this is the case as people do get very passionate about history, especially history about cricket. With the creation of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008 and its eight franchises, some worth 34 to 48 million dollars the face of cricket is ultimately changing, and with critics arguing to its detriment with emphasis placed on advertisement, sponsorship deals, and player signings is changing the very values, traditions and characteristics of the game which have made it so universal. There is however, no doubt that cricket is becoming more popular and re-energised for a new generation of cricket fans. In terms of the symbolism of cricket today it does act as a reminder of past imperialism but it also indicates the universality of culture itself. It displays its ability to transcend class and ethnic distinctions internally within a country but also externally, reaching across nearly every continent of the globe. Cricket reveals the malleability of culture and how it can be changed from something oppressive to something triumphant, a truly multicultural sport. And in the realisation that I don’t really know how to finish this article the danger of a clichéd ending appears unrelenting and unyielding in its imminence so.....

Two Cricketers in a pub one turns to the other and says:

Cricketer 1 – ‘You’re looking glum’

Cricketer 2 – ‘Yeah....my doctor has told me I can’t play cricket’

Cricketer 1 – ‘Really? I didn’t know he’d ever seen you play’ *sigh*...I feel positively awful.

***

In 1787 Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was founded. Its foundation marked the start of the sporting nature of the game: a game that would remain for some time, or even, arguably, eternally, as the prerogative of the elite.

According to Lord’s Cricket website, the gambling opportunities created by the game helped fashion this elitist nature, for instance in 1751 £20,000 was bet on a series of matches between Old Etonians and England, a sum definitely out of reach for most.

The rules of the sport were set out in 1788 (a “Code of Laws”), in which it was decreed that wickets should be placed 22 yards apart and it stated how a batsman could be given out.

Until 1864, the wicket had been “prepared” by grazing sheep but a mower and grounds man replaced that tradition.

Cricket was moved out of English turf by people emigrating to the colonies, specifically Australia, who would begin to play competitively and grow to be the famous rival of the English team.

Until 1968, an Imperial Cricket Conference existed to help facilitate the international sphere of the game.

The rivalry between England and Australia on the cricket pitch dates back to 1882 and is fiercely contested every two years with the Ashes series.

The name The Ashes came from an ironic bit of journalism from The Sporting Times in 1882 which said, in the aftermath of England’s first ever defeat by Australia on English soil (at the Oval), that “English cricket had died and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. The next tour in Australia was christened in the media as “the quest to regain the Ashes”. The name has stuck.

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