I Zingari Cricket Teams

The oldest of the wandering clubs originated on July 5, 1845 when WP Bolland took a side to Harrow. Dining together in London afterwards several of those who had taken part decided to form a club. At that time all clubs employed professional bowlers. The founders of IZ however (John Baldwin, Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane and the Hon F. Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Bessborough) decided that they would not do so, and therefore at a stroke brought the game into better balance by encouraging amateur bowling. The 20 friends whom they invited to join I Zingari - the name, by the way, which has puzzled many generations, is merely The Gypsies in Italian - included several keen amateur actors who already took part in the theatricals which formed a central part in the institution started in 1842 which soon became famous as the Canterbury Week. Hence derived the Old Stagers, the oldest amateur theatrical company in the world, just as Canterbury is the forerunner of all Cricket Weeks. A play or plays by the Old Stagers has been performed during Canterbury Week for more than 130 years, those of war excluded, and during it the OS wear the ancient colours of black, red and gold. They symbolized when IZ was formed an ascent "out of darkness, through fire, into light", the correct thing being therefore for members to wear the gold uppermost.

It played 19 first-class matches between 1849 and 1904, including matches against the Australians in 1882 and 1884.

The active membership of IZ has always been small and the fixture-list accordingly confined to about 30 days' cricket. The sides are generally young, and it is no longer safe, as R. L. Arrowsmith, the custodian of the records, has remarked, to obey the old dictum: "I always run on principle to anyone wearing an IZ cap".

Partly through custom perhaps, partly for reasons of geography and climate, the wandering club idea has not caught on widely overseas, but an offshoot, IZ Australia, flourishes there, playing mostly at Camden Park, a private estate some 60 miles from Sydney, and providing what is a rarity in Australia, keen but non-competitive cricket. There is also a branch of Incogniti fulfilling a similar function in Western Australia.
EW Swanton