History of Cricket Peru

Lima Cricket Club was founded in 1859 and cricket has been played in Lima, on and off, since then. The club moved to its present site with a cricket ground in Magdalena in the 1920s. The first match against a foreign team by a Peruvian team was against Sir Pelham Warner’s MCC side on its way back from Australia via Chile and Peru in 1927. The former England captain, Freddie Brown, was born in Lima and his father took five wickets against the MCC.

Only internal cricket was played between then and the 60s and, sadly, we have little record of this. Between 1967 and 1980 there was a surge of interest in the game, largely based on workers from British textile firms. As well as intense local competition, tours were arranged to Argentina three times, as well as to Colombia and Venezuela, and there were visits by teams from Argentina, Australia and England, as well as the Derrick Robbins XI, which included future England internationals, Bill Athey, Chris Cowdrey and Andy Lloyd.

The 1980s proved to be another quiet time for cricket in Peru but it recovered in the early 90s when the short, vibrant seasons in February and March raised interest and during Easter, 1995, a tournament was arranged in Lima between teams from Chile, Brazil and Peru. Chile won with Peru second and contact was reestablished. The first South American Cricket Championship took place soon after, in December that year, featuring Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. The Championship has taken place since then, at roughly two-year intervals, in Buenos Aires, Santiago - and Lima in 1999 and 2007 (at Lima Cricket and Football Club and Markham College).

After a promising season in 2006 and following a Twenty20 tournament between four local Lima teams, we made our successful application for Affiliate membership to the ICC (International Cricket Council). This has injected new life and investment into Peruvian cricket. It also means that Peru is now part of a worldwide cricket league system, with the possibility of eventually qualifying for the World Cup. Since 2006, our Affiliate Status has been converted into Associate Member Status and as a result, Cricket Peru has been invited 2 years in a row to the Annual ICC AGM.

International Competition

The Peruvian national cricket team has performed admirably over the past decade or so. Although every year we have hosted an Easter tournament, many of these games have not been considered full internationals as often visitors have not been able to field complete sides or they have not fully represented other countries.  The South American Cricket Championships are considered full internationals.

The greatest moments for the national team have come in the South American Championships, among them the victory over Venezuela in the 2000 SAC4 in Buenos Aries and the narrow loss to the Argentina A team in the 2004 SAC in Santiago. Since then we have performed admirably and become more competative with each year of development.

Domestic Competition

Peru has traditionally held an 8-10 week season at the Lima Cricket and Football Club (LCFC) from February until May. The advantage of playing cricket in Peru is that play is never lost to rain.

The most important regular matches on the calendar have been the Ambassadors Cup, India/Pakistan vs Rest of the World, The Ashes and more recently renowned, the Britanico Cup.
The Peruvian Cricket Association Apertura and Clausura tournaments began in 2007 and five teams now compete against each other.  The five local teams are: The Kiteflyers, Eidgenossen, Chak De, Lima Indians ,and LCFC.
In recent years there has been the addition of many Peruvian development players that have been funneled from the outreach programs.