The 97th Regiment of Foot was an infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 regiment of the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, formed in 1824 and amalgamated into The Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) in 1881.

The regiment was raised in 1824, taking its title from Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany and Earl of Ulster

Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany

The Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany was a member of the Hanoverian and British Royal Family, the second eldest child, and second son, of King George III...

.

In November 1832, the regiment's cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 team played the Colombo Cricket Club

Colombo Cricket Club

The Colombo Cricket Club is a first-class cricket club in Sri Lanka. It is the oldest in the country, having been formed in 1832.-External links:*...

 at the Rifle Green in Colombo

Colombo

Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...

, in the first recorded cricket match in Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

.

External links

• 97th (The Earl of Ulster's) Regiment of Foot, regiments.org