I Zingari | |
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Established | 1845 |
Founders |
John Loraine Baldwin Frederick Ponsonby Spencer Ponsonby Richard Penruddocke Long |
First match | v Newport Pagnell 29, 30 August 1845 |
First-class matches | 17 (1866–1904) |
I Zingari (from dialectalized Italian i zingari, meaning "the Gypsies"; corresponding to standard Italian gli zingari) are English and Australian amateur cricket clubs.
The English club was formed on 4 July 1845 by a group of Old Harrovians at a dinner party and thus is one of the oldest cricket clubs still in existence. The English team still plays around 20 matches each year. Also known as IZ, I Zingari is a wandering (or nomadic) club, having no home ground. Uniquely for an amateur club, Wisden reported all of its matches since 1867, but ceased to do so in 2005.
I Zingari was founded by John Loraine Baldwin, the Hon. Frederick Ponsonby (later 6th Earl of Bessborough), the Hon. Spencer Ponsonby (later Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane) and Richard Penruddocke Long, who were dining at the Blenheim Hotel in London's Bond Street after a match against Harrow School. They decided to form a club to foster the spirit of amateur cricket, and the club rules are famously idiosyncratic. William Boland, a barrister, was appointed the Perpetual President, and remains in post after his death. As a result, the leader of the club is termed its "Governor". Recent Governors of I Zingari include Charles Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham (1956 to 1977) and Alec Douglas-Home (1977 to 1989).
The club was at its strongest in the nineteenth century. It played seventeen first-class matches between 1849 and 1904, including matches against the Australians in 1882 and 1884.