Stoolball - it is cricket in the air

Lt.Col.A.A.de Alwis, M.Ed. (McGill)

STOOLBALL: Tradition has it that the ancient game of Stoolball in one form or another was the progenitor of cricket, rounders and baseball. References have been made to it in English literature one of which reads as follows:

"At stoolball, Lucia let us play

For sugar cakes and wine"

(1648 Robt. Herrick in Hesperides)

Bowler Sheroon Shaukett about to deliver the ball.	In strike position - that’s Sachinthani Dissanayake in half saree.	Ready to strike - batswoman Sheranja Weerakody in track kit.

The game of Stoolball was sometimes called "cricket in the air" as the soft leather ball is bowled not on the ground but underarm at a board, a foot square, fixed to the top of a post defended by a player with a bat. The word "stool" is old Sussex dialect for a tree stump (the post). It was a game played originally between two tree stumps and the flats of stools used by milkmaids were the boards fixed to the top of the stumps to which the ball was directed.

Today, the distance of 16 yards between posts is set by the Stoolball Association of England and the bowlers within eight ball overs use a bowling crease set 10 yards from each wicket. The rules of the game are very similar to that of cricket with teams comprising of eleven or eight players and accommodating a strike for four and six runs with the usual runs earned for running between wickets closely watched by a wicketkeeper.

As the game in the main is popular among girls and women, there were times that taxed the good judgement of the umpires. There was a rule that prevented Victorian women from catching the ball in the petticoats they wore and on one celebrated occasion the umpire ruled the striker as "out" when the air-borne ball finally lodged in a fielder's coiffure. Rude remarks that followed were said to have been heard and which nearly ended play.

As for equipment, the bats are similar to enlarged "fives" bats and the balls are somewhat smaller and not so hard as cricket balls. No gloves or other protective equipment is used. There is no special dress code - teams appearing in "sweats", divided skirts, jeans and tops and deck shoes. In Victorian England, straw hats were de rigueur as seen in a group photograph portraying probably the Northern Lovelies at their Stoolball Meet with the Southern Sweeties. The Sussex County Magazine of 1928 carried an article by Major W. W. Grantham K. C. who popularized the sport in several countries.

Reporting on a visit to Ceylon in 1928, he observed that the game had been played in the Island for some years and published a photograph of a match in progress at Hillwood College, Kandy with the players "in their picturesque native dress".

The photograph depicts the barefoot juniors of Hillwood in Kandyan half saree playing the game on the extant Hillwood Stoolball Court.

A souvenir bat was presented to Major Grantham by the Lady British missionary principal of Hillwood and which is presently on display, with Stoolball bats from many countries, in the Museum of the Stoolball Association of England in Horsham, UK.

A revival of the game at Hillwood is currently underway due to the special interest taken by Principal Sudharshini Hettige and Surani Galagoda, the Prefect of Games with advice from the Stoolball Association of England.

The game was played at Hillwood until after WW.2 and thereafter disappeared from the games program.