Criquet - 1478 First Recorded Cricket Match

French hamlet claims to be site of the first recorded cricket match

In 1478, at the village of Liettres in northern France, a young man called Estiavannet came across a group of disagreeable people playing an unusual game. It involved “boules” or balls and a wooden post or “criquet”.

According to a letter of grievance to the king, which survives in the French national archives, an argument broke out. One of the players said: “Why are you staring at our ball game?” There was violence. Someone was killed.

This may be the first mention anywhere of the game of cricket, almost a century before the first written record of the game in England (although there are also suggestions that an early form of the game might have been mentioned in 1300).

The village of Liettres in French Flanders now stage an “international cricket tournament”.

The Liettres Challenge 1478 is an international cricket competition held every year at the end of September in the municipality of Liettres and celebrating the world's oldest witness of cricket authenticated in a letter of complaint addressed to King Louis XI who mentions a death during a match on October 25, 1478 in the Castle Park of Liettres.

The tournament brings together the 3 countries concerned by the birth of Cricket France (French Flanders), Belgium (Belgian Flanders) and England, country of cricket.

- shared from internet resource.