Cricket's Historians

The Pioneers of Cricket’s History and Statistics Before following the saga of Denison’s successors as ace cricket reporter and embryo cricket statistician, it is time to return to the way cricket’s history was being considered and for that it is necessary to consider the work of the Rev James Pycroft. Pycroft was born at Guyers House, Pickwick, Wiltshire in 1813, the second son of Thomas Pycroft, barrister-at-law. He was educated at a school in Bath before going up to Trinity College, Oxford in October 1832. Pycroft supposedly, as a youth, had had a hand in the formation of Lansdown Cricket Club in the 1820s, though his claim to be the founder in his autobiography is a slight hyperbole. Pycroft certainly played for the Club as a 14 year old in 1827 and according to Donald Bradfield, in his history of the club, for the ‘‘full side’’ in 1829. At Oxford Pycroft was a major force in the revival of the university match – this had not been played since 1829 and was revived, with Pycroft opening the batting, in 1836. The previous year, a book The Principles of Scientific Batting, or Plain Rules, founded on the Practice of the first Professors and Amateurs for the Noble Game of Cricket had been written by a ‘Gentleman’. Appropriately the Gentleman was James Pycroft. In 1836, Pycroft obtained his degree and went to Lincoln’s Inn to follow his father into the legal profession, but four years later abandoned the Law and took Holy Orders, taking a position as a master in a school in Leicester. He was the author of a number of works related to teaching and education, but his fame rests on having, in 1851, published The Cricket Field : or, The History and Science of Cricket . The book was destined to vie with John Nyren’s work as the most popular cricket book of the 19 th century and if not the most popular in terms of copies ever sold, then certainly the one most read and studied. In his Preface, Pycroft states that he has Nyren’s book and Bentley’s book of scores and has been to the villages in Hampshire and Surrey to talk to old cricketers. Also important in the contents of Pycroft’s book was a manuscript written by the Rev John Mitford, recalling talks Mitford had with William Fennex (the noted cricketer of the 1780s and 1790s). Pycroft also checked Joseph Strutt’s book. He unfortunately adopts Strutt’s club- 20