wicket: [13] A wicket was originally a ‘small gate’, and etymologically the word appears to denote something that ‘turns’ – presumably on a hinge in opening and closing. It was borrowed from Old Northern French wiket, which in turn came from a Germanic source represented also by modern Swedish vika ‘fold, turn’. The set of stumps originally used for cricket resembled a gate – indeed the game’s first batsmen may have defended an actual gate in a sheep pen – and so it came to be known as a wicket. This was in the 18th century; the extension of the term to the ‘pitch’ dates from the mid 19th century. [wicket etymology, wicket origin, 英语词源]