Cricket in times of rugby

Updated On: 28 October, 2019 08:10 AM IST | Yokohama | Suvam Pal

Suvam Pal traces the history of Yokohama CC while covering the ongoing rugby World Cup in Japan where the willow game arrived before football; cricket was played there at many leading schools from 1868-1912

Listen to this article :

An Illustration of the first rugby match played in Japan in 1866. courtesy Graphic, April 18, 1874 From the collection of Mike Galbraith

Yokohama: This year's rugby World Cup in Japan hogged the headlines for its spectacular arrival in the Asian continent and the hosts underlining a slew of coming of age performances to make the baseball, sumo wrestling and football-loving nation go crazy, another British-invented sports, cricket, has got some interesting connections to the blue riband event of the sport that was invented by a certain Matthew Webb Ellis in the Victorian-era eponymous school.

Ellis figures on trophy

Lancashire-born, Oxford-educated Ellis, whose name is given to the winners' silverware of each editions of the rugby World Cup, was credited by historians as an ordinary cricketer with a rather insignificant one match first-class career as he featured in the 1827 varsity match — the inaugural contest — and scored just 12 runs. Although it's been still disputed whether Ellis's "picking up the ball and running" during a football practice in the school in 1823 can qualify him to be the inventor of the sport, but the gentlemen's game has made its presence felt in this year's rugby World Cup.

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

;

Home / Sports / Other Sports / Article / Cricket in times of rugby