Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800

Preface The game of cricket has attracted the attention of many eminent social and sporting historians. Their published works contain many differences of opinion and emphasis about the origins and evolution of the game, but all agree that something recognisable as cricket first emerged no later than the mid sixteenth century somewhere in the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex in the south-eastern corner of England. Only later did it spread to the rest of England, ultimately going on to become the global game we see today. The period covered by this book, broadly the last three decades of the eighteenth century, was crucial to this development. By 1770, cricket had already moved a long way from its lowly origins. It had for many decades attracted the interest and patronage of the nobility and gentry, and it had become popular in London and other places beyond its traditional heartland. Nevertheless, in the 1770s the game’s rural origins were still dominant and the greatest force on the cricket field was the celebrated club based at Hambledon in the Hampshire Downs. By 1800, however, the focus of the game had shifted emphatically to London, and in particular to the Marylebone Cricket Club and its new ground developed and managed by a professional cricketer, Thomas Lord. Many histories of the game have addressed these pivotal decades, and this book does not aspire to jostle such crowded territory. Instead of narrative history, it aims to contribute essential documentary background: the full scores of the most important matches of the period, so far as they can be assembled after a lapse of more than two centuries. Others have, of course, been here before. As long ago as 1799, William Epps of Rochester published A Collection of All the Grand Matches of Cricket played in England within Twenty Years, viz. 1771 to 1791 . From 1790 to 1803 Samuel Britcher produced an annual containing the scores of major matches, and in 1823 Henry Bentley published a book of matches played between 1786 and 1822. Finally, in 1862 Arthur Haygarth began to issue his monumental Scores and Biographies , the first volume of which (referred to in these notes simply as ‘SB’) covered matches from 1744 to 1826. Ever since, for statisticians and historians in search of scores from the period, Scores and Biographies has been the first port of call. But nearly a century and a half after Haygarth, it is time to revisit the subject. Scholarship of the period has advanced markedly since his day. Researchers such as F.S. Ashley-Cooper, G.B. Buckley and H.T. Waghorn uncovered much important new material, and the process has continued up to the present time, with their modern successors much assisted by the availability of newspapers and other records on the internet. 12 Thomas Lord batting. Drawing by George Shepheard. With thanks to MCC Photo Library.