A remarkable film from 1901 of former Test cricketers KS Ranjitsinhji and CB Fry has been painstakingly restored by the National Film and Sound Archive.

The fragile film runs just 19 seconds but consists of 465 individual frames that work together like a flip book.

The footage was taken in Hove, England and was recently donated to the archive by cricket historian Glenn Gibson.

It was originally shot for a home entertainment system of the era called the Kinora.

It worked by turning a handle to make the images flick through and appear as a movie.

The archive does not have a Kinora machine to play the slides, so curator Jeff Wray had to improvise.

"Our Conservation team suggested adapting a film winder to replicate the original Kinora mechanism," he said.

It also had a "metal ruler to hold the images, so they could flick through the reel without damaging them".

Later, the frames were animated and stabilised using advanced compositing software, to produce a moving image close to the original.

The still images inside the kinora reel. ( Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive )

The film shows both players batting.

Ranjitsinhji — known as "Ranji" — was referred to as the prince of cricket at the turn of the 20th century.

Although born in India, he played 15 Test matches for England with a top score of 175.

Fry played cricket and soccer for England and was a noted writer on the summer game.

The success of the restoration means the archive will use its custom-made device to digitise six other Kinora reels in its collection, including a woman dancing, the launching of a life boat, and a man reacting to reading a letter.