Cricket: An Insect, a Sport, and a Standard of Fairness
A cricket is a chirping insect, and cricket is a bat-and-ball sport. The sport gave English a phrase for fair behaviour: it is simply not cricket.
Cricket names an insect and a sport with no connection between them. The sport left a lasting mark on the language: saying something *is not cricket* means it is unfair, an idiom that survives among people who have never watched a match.
- A chirping insect. *Crickets sang in the long grass.*
- A bat-and-ball sport. *A five-day cricket match.*
- Fair play (in it is not cricket). *That is simply not cricket.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun (insect) | cricket | A house cricket. |
| Noun (sport) | cricket | Test cricket. |
| Person | cricketer | A former cricketer. |
| Adjective | cricketing | His cricketing career. |
| Related | grasshopper | Grasshoppers in the field. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The crickets stopped at first light.The insect — males chirp by rubbing their wings.
- A Test match can last five days and still be drawn.Which visitors find hard to believe.
- Changing the rules midway is not cricket.Unfair, whatever the technical position.
Cricket terms that puzzle newcomers
- Over — six deliveries bowled from one end
- Wicket — the stumps, the pitch, and a batter's dismissal, all at once
- Duck — a batter dismissed without scoring
- Maiden — an over from which no runs are scored
- Innings — one side's turn to bat, and always spelled with the s
The insect comes from Old French *criquet*, imitating the sound. The sport's name is uncertain: it may come from Old English *cricc*, a staff, or from a Flemish word for a stick used in a related game.
Are the insect and the sport related?
No. They are separate words that happened to arrive at the same spelling by different routes.
Where does it is not cricket come from?
From the Victorian idea of cricket as the model of gentlemanly fair play. The phrase spread far beyond the game.