175 Years Not Out! Parliament's Cricket Club Celebrate Their Anniversary
The club marked their 175th anniversary at Highclere Castle
4 min read
Parliament’s cricket team has been playing since 1850. Graham Stuart and Andrew Bingham tell Noah Vickers about the sport’s lasting popularity among MPs, peers and staff
The Lords and Commons Cricket Club this year marked an extraordinary 175 years since its first recorded match on 22 June 1850. On that day, members of both houses competed against amateur wandering team I Zingari at Vincent Square.
“It’s quite likely that we played games before that, but we have no record of it,” says club chairman Graham Stuart, the Conservative MP for Beverley and Holderness.
“Quality was an issue from the beginning,” he adds, “which is why, in one famous match against I Zingari again, in 1870, we had 24 players against their 11.
“What I’m not sure of is whether that was enough for us to win. I assume from the fact that we don’t have it in the records that we didn’t, that even 24 of us wasn’t enough to take them on.”
Over the years, players have included Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Macmillan, Matt Hancock, Sadiq Khan and Boris Johnson – though Johnson’s brother, Lord (Jo) Johnson, “is a rather better player”, notes Stuart.
Because it’s cross-party, you get time to sit and chew the fat about all sorts of things
What explains cricket’s long-lasting popularity in Parliament?
“Unlike football or rugby, where you turn up, you have a game for an hour and a half and go home again – [perhaps with] a cup of tea at half-time – with cricket, we’re there all day,” says club secretary Andrew Bingham, who served as High Peak’s Conservative MP between 2010 and 2017.
“The best thing is, because it’s cross-party, you get time to sit and chew the fat about all sorts of things. A few of the other halves come along as well, so it’s a whole day out.”
Indeed, while many of the most famous faces to have played over the years seem to have been Conservatives, the club is proudly non-partisan, and some of its best current players have come from the 2024 Labour intake. The star batsman of this season, according to Stuart, is Welwyn Hatfield MP Andrew Lewin, with Ipswich MP Jack Abbott recognised as star bowler.
And it isn’t just a game for men either, as Angela Eagle, Caroline Johnson and Baroness Evans – among several other women – have represented the club too.
Earlier this year, the club flew out to Italy, where they achieved a tie against Roma Capannelle – leaving them hopeful of a win against the Vatican’s St Peter’s Cricket Club.
The team were taken on a tour of St Peter’s Basilica, where a prayer was said for them ahead of that second game. “It didn’t do us much good,” says Bingham. “I think you could say we didn’t have a prayer.”
Stuart recalls: “We came out of Capannelle train station, glimpsed the young Keralan and Sri Lankan 20-something-year-old priests being put through stretching and exercises by a professional South African coach, and we realised within a split second that no such victory was forthcoming – and it wasn’t.”
Former England cricketer Monty Panesar with Graham Stuart MP
Back in the UK, the club marked its anniversary on 22 June by playing against the Earl of Carnarvon’s XI team at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, (the film location for Downton Abbey).
But the main celebration was a formal dinner at Lord’s Cricket Ground in October, attended by former prime minister and cricket obsessive Sir John Major. The event raised almost £20,000 for youth cricket and disability sports charity Lord’s Taverners.
The club – which counts former England captain Lord Botham as its president – is now preparing to fly out to Australia on Boxing Day for a three-match series against the Australian parliament’s team, having beaten them three times in a row.
What does the team’s future hold? Bingham says that wherever the club plays, they hope to leave “a good footprint” behind.
“We’ll continue playing, and if we can help a charity by playing a game of cricket, [we will], because people do quite like to have the chance to hurl cricket balls at MPs’ heads.”
