Beware of questions that include the words "first", "cricketer", and "knighted".
The first cricketer to be knighted was probably William Milton. Born in Buckinghamshire in 1854, he emigrated to South Africa in 1878, having already played rugby for England. He represented South Africa in their first three Test matches, in 1889 and 1892, and was their captain in the second and third. In 1897 he was appointed Acting Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, and in 1901 he was made Adminstrator in his own right. For this information I am indebted to Wikipedia, and I mention this because as Acting Administrator he is named as William Henry Milton, and as Administrator he's Sir William. I haven't been able to establish exactly when he received his knighthood, but I infer from Wikipedia that it was some time betweem 1897 and 1901. He died in 1930.
Wikipedia lists 22 cricketers who were knighted for services to cricket, and eight who played Test cricket and were knighted for other reasons. Milton is one of the latter.
The first person to be knighted for services to cricket, or indeed any sport, was Francis Lacey. He played for Hampshire from 1880 to 1897; for most of this time Hampshire wasn't a first–class county, so he only played 50 first–class matches. He never played for England, but he was Secretary of the MCC from 1898 to 1926. It was on his retirement from this post that he was knighted; it was in recognition of his services as an administrator, rather than as a player.
In 1936, a gentleman who rejoiced in the name of Vijay Ananda Gajapathi Raju, not to mention the title Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, was knighted. As the second son of the ruler of Vizianagram – a district of south–east India – he was immensely rich and influential. Sadly, he wasn't much of a cricketer; but he made his name in the game by organising teams and tours, in the days when India itself was trying to establish itself as a Test-playing nation. He captained the Indian team on its first tour of England, in 1936, but those were the only three Tests he ever played. The first began on 23 June and the third ended on 23 August. His knighthood was announced in the London Gazette of 23 June; so he was actually awarded his knighthood before his international career began. He was the first person to be knighted while still playing cricket at Test level, but again the honour was in recognition of his services as an administrator, rather than as a player.
The next person we should consider is the great Donald Bradman. His 52nd and last Test match was played in August 1948, and he was knighted in the New Year honours list of 1949. He remains the only Australian cricketer to be knighted; his predecessor as Austalia captain, Bill Woodfull, had been offered a knighthood on his retirement in 1934, but had turned it down – saying that his work as a teacher was more important to him than cricket (his argument, presumably, being that to accept an honour for services to cricket would suggest the opposite). Woodfull had been Australia's captain during the controversial Bodyline tour of 1932–3; his family later claimed that this had sapped his passion for cricket.
In 1954, the great England batsman Jack Hobbs received a knighthood – thus becoming the first professional cricketer to be knighted. When I first heard this, I wondered how come Don Bradman, a carpenter's son from rural New South Wales, had made his way as an amateur. Well: it seems that there were no professional cricketers in Australia in those days. In 1931 Bradman was offered a contract by the Accrington club, which played in the Lancashire League, but he turned it down as it would go against the terms of his contract with the Australian Test team. It seems he made a living by writing for the papers, working for sports goods suppliers, and endorsements.
I would imagine that all of this, so far, is history to most viewers of this website – in the sense that they might have read about it, but they don't remember it. It was "before their time". But I now come to a knighthood that I, for one, remember well: that of Richard Hadlee.
Hadlee was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the Queen's Birthday Honours announced on 15 June 1990.
In February 1990, during a home series against India, he had become the first bowler to take 400 Test wickets. By the time the New Zealand party arrived in England that summer, Hadlee had already announced that he would retire from international cricket at the end of the tour. It was after the first Test of the series (which ended in a draw) that his knighthood was announced. He celebrated in the second Test by scoring 86 runs in New Zealand's only innings and taking four of the 14 England wickets to fall, in a second rain–affected match; he was rewarded by being named Man of the Match.
In the third Test he took eight wickets, including five in the second innings. With his final ball in Test cricket, he bowled Devon Malcolm for a duck – his 431st Test wicket. But when New Zealand batted, Malcolm got his revenge by bowling Hadlee in his final Test innings for just 13. New Zealand, needing 349 to win the match, could only manage 230; England won the match, and the series 1–0.
Hadlee's final Test match ended on 10 July 1990, and he was invested with his knighthood on 4 October. So strictly speaking, he was not knighted while still playing at Test level; but he was entitled to be styled Sir Richard during his final two Tests.
The reason I've gone into all this in so much detail is because I'm pretty sure I was told at the time that Hadlee was the first cricketer to be knighted while still playing at Test level. I'm also pretty sure I've heard this asked as a quiz question on more than one subsequent occasion. But it seems that he wasn't; as we've already seen, that honour should go to Lt.–Col. Sir Maharajkumar Dr. Vijayananda Gajapathi Raju, Maharajkumar of Vizianagram – a.k.a. Vizzy (by which name we shall thankfully refer to him from here on in).
Wikipedia's Richard Hadlee page points out that "Vizzy's knighthood was recognised for his administrative efforts, not his services to cricket as a player." However, in the announcement in the London Gazette (linked from Wikipedia's Vizzy page), he is simply listed as "Member of the Legislative Assembly". The Legislative Assembly, it seems, is part of the government of an Indian state; so we might conclude that Vizzy's knighthood wasn't for services to cricket at all, but for government service.
I'm not sufficiently sure of all this to state categorically that Richard Hadlee was the first cricketer to be knighted for services to cricket while still playing at Test level. He wasn't even the first New Zealand cricketer to be knighted; Jack Newman, who played three Tests for New Zealand in 1932–3, was knighted in 1977 for his services to the travel industry, commerce and the community, as an executive in his family's firm. In this context, Hadlee's best indisputable claim seems to be that he's still the only New Zealander to have been knighted for services to cricket.
© Haydn Thompson 2017