Cricket's Historians

The Influence of W.G.Grace runs, amassed in 35 innings, yields an average of 78.9, so that with two more innings he has made nearly a thousand more runs than last year, and his average has increased to the wonderful extent of 24 runs for each time he has gone to the wickets! Each of those quotes come from the paragraph which heads the first- class batting averages of the specific season. In 1876 W.G. twice broke the individual innings record, which as the press reminded their readers had been held by William Ward (278) since 1820 – Grace hit 318 and 344, but the reporters were even more astonished by his innings of 400 against XXII of Grimsby, more than double the previous best against Odds. It is little wonder that this torrent of records led inevitably to the composition of tables of records – initially batting by individuals, then by teams and also bowling tables. In 1880, the Lillywhite Annual included a chapter ‘A Few Loose Strings’ which expanded the traditional lists of the season’s hundreds and top bowling analyses to feature ‘Carrying Bat Through Innings’, ‘Long Scores for First Wicket’, ‘Small Scoring’, ‘Tall Scoring’, though these lists only included feats in the season under review. This list of sundry records is perhaps a milestone in the development of the collation of such data. The rival Lillywhite’s Companion featured ‘Cricket Curiosities’ which pointed out, among other items, that Cambridge University’s score of 593 was the second highest ever in first- class cricket. The encouragement of ‘amateurs’ to seek out and compile ‘first-class records’ on a bigger scale came with the creation of the weekly magazine Cricket in 1882. This was not the first weekly devoted entirely to cricket – that innovation had taken place in the United States in 1877. Cricket was also preceded in England by Cricket and Football Times , a weekly publication that first appeared on May 2, 1878 and was published from 115, Fleet Street, London. As its name implies the magazine covered football in the winter. This weekly was clearly designed to cash in on the visit that summer of the Australian Touring Team. The magazine never really took hold and closed in 1881. There is a minor mystery as to the 44