Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800

Matches in 1744 The scores on the following two pages date from 1744 and are the earliest known examples of full scores. They are included because of their obvious importance and interest, but it should be stressed that, as explained in the Preface, they are not formally classified as ‘great’ matches by the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. One day only is given for each match and this is thought likely to be correct. It was still common at the time for a two-innings-a-side game to be completed in a single day if the weather was good. The first match is between London and Slindon. The latter is a small Sussex village located not far from Goodwood House, country seat of the preeminent cricket patron the 2nd Duke of Richmond. The village was home to many leading cricketers and has some claim to be the Hambledon of its day. Indeed, the Hambledon comparison is not an idle one. Hambledon itself lies less than twenty miles to the west on the other side of the Hampshire border. And Richard Nyren, the Hambledon Club’s ‘head and right arm’ as he was later described, was baptised at Slindon’s next-door village of Eartham in 1734, the nephew of the celebrated Slindon cricketer Richard Newland. Another Slindon cricketer, Edward Aburrow, was the father of the Hambledon player of the same name. Both Richard Newland and Edward Aburrow appear for Slindon in the 1744 match against London, but on this occasion the village team is reinforced by a number of men from father afield such as John and Joseph Harris and John Bryant. It has been pointed out that in the famous match between England and Kent on 18 June, all but one of the England side had appeared for either London or Slindon on 2 June. The earlier match may therefore have been in the nature of a trial to help select the England team to play Kent. In the event, Kent beat England by one wicket after Thomas Waymark dropped the catch that would have given England victory: ‘The erring Ball, amazing to be told! Slip’d thro’ his out-stretch’d Hand, and mock’d his Hold.’ The quote is from Cricket: an Heroic Poem by James Love, which celebrated this famous game and which went through three editions, the last as late as 1770. The poem, which gives many additional details about the players and the match, is now most readily found in Volume I of Ian Maun’s From Commons to Lord’s: A Chronology of Cricket 1700-1799 . 9