I just did a search for "popping crease" online and got some 50,000+ results, so it's not completely out of use, apparently.

"The odd name of the popping crease refers to the early history of the game of cricket, in that batsmen used to have to 'pop' their bats into a small hole that was located in the middle of the crease for a run to count. For a player to run a batsman out he had to pop the ball into the hole before the bat was grounded in it."

--From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crease_%28cricket%29


So regardless of where the original write-up came from, it sounds like "popping crease" is a term that someone like Sir Mumphrey is more likely to use.