Kings of Crekettes

Seeing where the English Cricket team is today, it looks likely that they are in for more humilitation.

First of all there was this discovery by Paul Campbell, an Australian, Australian, that Cricket did not originate in England.

He had uncovered a poem written by John Skelton in 1533, "The Image of Ipocrisie", where we find, 

"O lorde of Ipocrites

Nowe shut vpp your wickettes

And clape to your clickettes!

A! Farewell, kings of crekettes."

These lines are supposed to be addressed to the Flemish weavers who had settled in southern and eastern England. We have the word of an English poet that the Flemish are the "Kings of crekettes".  Well... well...

"I’m pleased but not totally surprised," says Charles Brommaert from local league Cricket Vlaanderen. "If you look closely at some of Pieter Brueghel’s paintings you see his characters playing a game that could have been cricket. This discovery will certainly put the sport in a new light in Flanders and will help to convince the Flemish that cricket isn’t an alien sport."

-Flanders Today 

Well, if that did not take them down a peg or two, here is the real one:

The Olympic Silver Medallist in Cricket, France has challenged England for a rematch. The last time they met in the finals of the Paris Olympics in the year 1900, England had defeated France by 158 runs.

Seems that they have been following the fortunes of this English team, "Now the French national cricket association, France Cricket, has challenged England to a return game in Lille just before the London Olympics in 2012," reports Telegraph.co.uk  

As if things are not bad enough...